“If you tell me what you’re looking for I might be able to help?” A voice, low and gravelly, had emerged from the heaped-up quilt.

Then more of the man emerged as he propped himself up on one arm. Naked shoulders, a naked chest with a splattering of dark hair that arrowed down to a hard, flat stomach….

“Um….” Ginny murmured, mesmerised.

“I’m sorry?” One of Richard Mallory’s brows kinked upwards. “I didn’t quite catch that.”

She swallowed hard. There was nothing to do but bluff it out and hope for the best.

“I was looking for my hamster.”

Dear Reader,

Quiet, studious Ginny Lautour and Sophie Harrington, privileged, lively, the natural class “princess,” were the two girls least likely to be friends. But Sophie’s natural kindness in rescuing a lost soul on her first day at school and clever Ginny’s aptitude for getting Sophie out of trouble forged the kind of bond that lasts a lifetime. So when Sophie begs for Ginny’s help to save her job, even though it means breaking into her sexy billionaire playboy neighbor’s apartment, she doesn’t hesitate.

And everything would have been fine if Richard Mallory was—as promised—away for the weekend. But then Sophie wasn’t being entirely honest with her best friend. She wasn’t in trouble. Just matchmaking!

As Sophie discovers, however, when you tell a big fat fib, even if it is with the best of intentions, it’s likely to come back and bite you. Homeless, jobless and with Ginny honeymooning with her beloved Richard, Sophie has no one to turn to. For the first time ever she has to live on what she can earn and, with Christmas coming, the only job on offer is that of dog walker to gorgeous grouch Gabriel York. But it’s the season for miracles and once he offers her a home, no matter how temporary, all things are possible.

I do hope you enjoy reading how best friends Ginny and Sophie find their very special happy endings in The Billionaire Takes a Bride and A Surprise Christmas Proposal.

With love,

Liz

The Billionaire Takes a Bride
Liz Fielding

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For the ladies of the eHarlequin Writers’ Auxiliary and Hamster Circle. Thanks for the laughs.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER ONE

THIS was a mistake. A big mistake. Every cell in Ginny’s body was slamming on the brakes, digging in its heels, trying to claw its way back behind the safety of the rain-soaked hedge that divided her roof top terrace from the raked perfection of Richard Mallory’s Japanese garden, with its mossy rocks, carp pool and paper-walled pavilion.

Previous perfection.

Her boots had left deep impressions in the damp gravel. So much for stealth.

She was not cut out for burglary. Even her clothes were wrong. She should have been in svelte black and wearing lightweight tennis shoes that made no noise, her hair bolted down under a tight ski cap…

Oh, for heaven’s sake. It was the middle of the morning and the last thing she wanted to look like was a burglar.

In the unlikely event that she was discovered it was important that she looked exactly what she was. A distressed neighbour looking for her lost pet…

Somebody totally innocent. And an innocent person didn’t change shoes, or happen to be wearing the appropriate clothing to battle through a hedge. Her lace-ups, baggy jeans and a loose shirt in an eye-gouging purple—fifty pence from her favourite charity shop—screamed innocent. Of everything except bad taste.

She groaned.

Distressed was right.

She had promised herself that she would never volunteer to do anything like this ever again. Not even for Sophie. Famous last words.

Her mouth hadn’t been paying attention.

She took a deep steadying breath and firmly beat back the urgent desire to bolt. It would be fine. She had every angle covered and this was for a friend. A friend in trouble.

A friend who was always in trouble.

A friend who’d always been there for her, she reminded herself.

She took another deep breath, then stepped through the open French windows into the empty room.

‘Er, hello?’

Her voice emerged as a painful croak. A bit like a frog with laryngitis. She had her story all ready in the unlikely event that someone answered, but that didn’t stop her heart from pounding like the entire timpani section of the London Philharmonic…

‘Anyone home?’

The only response was the faint whirr of a washing machine hitting the spin cycle.

Apart from that no sound of any kind.

No turning back.

She had fifteen minutes. Maybe twenty if she was lucky. A brief window of opportunity while the cleaner, having opened up the French windows to let in the fresh air, as she did every morning—why had she mentioned that to Sophie?—and put on the washing, was downstairs flirting with the hall porter over a cup of coffee.

Okay. She wiped the sweat from her upper lip. She could do this. Fifteen minutes was more than enough time to find one little computer disk and save stupid Sophie’s stupid job.

Excuse me? Who exactly is the stupid one here?

The prod from her subconscious was unnecessary. She was the one burgling her neighbour’s apartment while ‘stupid’ Sophie was safely at work, surrounded by an office full of alibi-providing colleagues. Should the need for one arise.

While quiet, sensible Ginny—who should at this moment be safely tucked up in the British Library researching Homeric myths—was the one who’d be arrested.

All the more reason not to waste any more time wool-gathering. Even so, she took a moment to look around, get her bearings. This was not the moment to knock something over…

Mallory’s penthouse apartment, like his garden, tended towards the minimalist. There was very little furniture—but all of it so perfectly simple that you just knew it had cost a mint—a few exquisite pieces of modern ceramics and absolutely acres of pale polished wood floor.

Stay well away from the ceramics, she told herself. Don’t go near the ceramics…

There was only one ‘off’ note.

Spotlit by a beam of sunlight that had found its way through the scudding clouds, a black silk stocking tied in a neat bow around the neck of a champagne bottle next to two champagne flutes looked shockingly decadent in such an austere setting.

A linen napkin—on which something had been scrawled in what looked like lipstick—was tucked into the bow.

A thank you note?

She swallowed hard and firmly quashing her curiosity—she was in enough trouble already—resisted the temptation to take a look.

Whatever it said, the scene confirmed everything she’d heard about the man’s reputation. Not his reputation as a genius, or money machine. Those went without saying. The financial papers regularly genuflected to his brilliance while salivating over Mallory plc’s profits.

It was his reputation as a babe magnet that seemed to be confirmed by this still-life-with-champagne tableau.

Despite being his next door neighbour, albeit on a temporary basis, their paths hadn’t yet crossed so she’d had no opportunity to check this out for herself. Not that she was the kind of ‘babe’ he’d look at twice—she wasn’t any kind of ‘babe’, as she’d be the first to acknowledge.

Whether or not he magnetised her.

Not that he would. Magnetise her.

No matter how superficially attractive, she didn’t find anything appealing about a man who had a reputation for casual affairs, even if the gossip columns loved him for it. But then she didn’t think much of gossip columns, either.

She pushed her spectacles up her nose and, putting her hand over her heart in an effort to cut down on the jack-hammer noise it was making, made a big effort to concentrate on what Sophie had told her.

He’d taken the disk home with him earlier in the week and it would be lying about on his desk somewhere. Probably.

Totally confident of her ability to find the thing—‘I mean, how difficult could it be?’—Sophie had been weak on actual details.

About as weak as her reason for not doing this herself. If this was such a breeze, why couldn’t she squeeze through the rain-soaked hedge—the very prickly rain-soaked hedge—and get it herself? After all, she only lived a few floors down, in the same apartment block.

‘But darling, you’re living next door to the man. It’s just so perfect. Almost as if it was fate. If he even suspects I was anywhere near his study I’ll not only lose my job, I’ll never get another one. The man’s a complete bastard. He has absolutely no tolerance for anything less than perfection…’

Right. Of course. She remembered now. Sophie couldn’t risk getting caught. The whole point was to save her job. The only mystery was why she was working for a computer software company in the first place. She usually preferred a little light PR work, or swanning about looking decorative in an art gallery…

Sophie had made it all sound so simple. A quick trip through the hedge that divided her roof garden from his and Bob, apparently, would be her uncle. Which was why Ginny had been nominated to ransack this ‘complete bastard’s’ apartment, ‘borrow’ the disk, copy and return it—thus saving Sophie’s job—without his ever knowing she’d been there.

Piece of cake.

A low groan escaped her lips. She wasn’t built for burglary. Or was it breaking and entering? When she hadn’t actually broken in?

A fine legal point that she was sure the magistrate would explain as he passed sentence if she didn’t find the disk and get out of there before Mrs Figgis returned from her daily dalliance over a double latte with the porter.

Unfortunately, although she was sending urgent ‘move’ messages from her brain to her feet, her synapses appeared to be on a go-slow. Or maybe they were just frozen with terror like the rest of her.

Never again, she vowed, as the message finally got through and her feet came unstuck from the spot to which she had been glued for what seemed like hours. This was positively, absolutely, totally the last time she would allow Sophie Harrington to talk her into trouble.

No. That was unfair. She’d managed to talk herself into trouble. But who could resist Sophie Harrington when she turned on the charm?

Twenty-four years old going on fifteen.

This was just like Ginny’s raid on the school secretary’s office all over again. That time it had been Sophie’s life-or-death need to reclaim her diary before the headmistress read it. Only an idiot would carry such an inflammatory document around with her. Only a complete idiot would be stupid enough to write it in class…

Except that on this occasion if she got caught pulling her best friend’s irons from the fire she risked a lot more than a shocked ‘I expected better from you’ lecture and a suspension of visits to the village for the rest of the term.

She dragged her mind back to reality. Cloakroom, kitchen… She came to a stunned halt as she took in the brushed steel and slate wonder of Mallory’s state-of-the-art kitchen. What couldn’t she do in a kitchen like that?

Richard Mallory wouldn’t need to use magnets on her, she decided, just offer her the run of his kitchen…

For heaven’s sake! She had less than fifteen minutes and she was wasting them drooling over his top of the range knives!

She moved quickly across the room and opened a door on the far side of the two-storey-high living space. Desk, laptop… Bingo!

Good grief, it looked as if a madman had been working without cease for a week. In contrast to everywhere else that had looked almost unlived in. Apart, that was, from the champagne bottle and flutes. One of them barely touched.

So, which of them had been in too much of a hurry…?

She really didn’t want to think about that and, dragging her mind back to the study, decided that untidy was good. It meant he probably wouldn’t be obsessive about locking stuff away.

It also meant there was a lot to look through. Empty water bottles, chocolate bar wrappers—he had seriously good taste in chocolate—and a ton of paper covered with figures littering the desk and floor.

Unfortunately, once she’d looked under all the papers, she could see that was all there was. Not a disk in sight.

She dragged her wandering mind back into line and tried the desk drawers. They didn’t budge. So much for the casual-about-security theory. And the key would be with him, on his long weekend in the country. Along with the owner of the black silk stocking.

Although, if that was the case, why the note? She jerked her curiosity back into line.

Why on earth would she care?

She checked her watch. Six precious minutes gone…

Okay. Keys came in sets of two so there had to be a spare somewhere. She ran her fingers beneath the desk, under the drawers, in case it was taped there. Well, no. First place a burglar would look, obviously. Even a first time burglar like her.

If you didn’t count the school secretary’s office…

Where would she keep the spare key to her desk drawer?

Safely in the drawer so she wouldn’t lose it, but then she didn’t have anything worth locking up. Okay, there were files and disks containing months of painstaking research. Nothing anyone would want to steal, though. But supposing she did…

In her bedside drawer seemed a likely place. Who would ever find it amongst all the clutter?

But would a man think that way? What did men put in their bedside drawers, anyway?

She had no way of knowing but, short of any other ideas, she abandoned the study and ran up the spiral staircase to the upper floor, emerging in a wide gallery where comfort had been allowed to encroach on the severity of the minimalist theme.

The floor was covered with a lovely old Turkish rug, there was a huge, much used leather armchair and the walls were lined, floor to ceiling, with shelves crammed with books that looked as if they’d been read, rather than arranged by an expensive decorator just for effect. She moved towards them on automatic, stumbling over a low table she hadn’t noticed and sending a heap of magazines slithering to the floor.

The noise was horrendous. But it brought her back to her senses. This was no time for browsing…

There was only one door leading from the gallery. Rubbing her shin, she opened it, stepping into a wide inner hallway lit from above by a series of skylights and groaned as she was confronted by half a dozen doors, opening the doors to an airing cupboard and two guest suites before she finally found Mallory’s room. It had to be his room. It was in darkness, the heavy curtains still shut tight against the feeble morning sunlight.

She left the door open to give her some light and looked around. There was very little furniture, which rather confused her.

The whole apartment was so different from the McBrides’ which, like the apartment block that Sir William had designed, had an art deco feel to it. Even the garden.

But it seemed that Mallory’s taste for minimalism extended even to his sleeping arrangements. A very low—and very large—unmade bed dominated the room. Mounded up with a mountainous quilt and pillows and flanked by a pair of equally low tables, each with a tall lamp.

She crossed quickly to the nearest one. At first, she couldn’t work out how to open the narrow, flush-fitting drawer. The lamp would have helped, but her hands were shaking so much with nerves that she was sure to knock it flying if she attempted to switch it on.

Instead, she got down on her knees and felt underneath, relieved to discover that the trick to it was nothing more complicated than a finger ledge.

She pulled and discovered the answer to her question. The drawer contained a quantity of products that suggested Richard Mallory was a man whose guiding principle in life was ‘be prepared’.

Frequently.

She closed it quickly. Okay. Enough was enough. She was running out of time here. And Sophie was running out of luck. She’d check the other table so that she could say she had done everything possible. After that, she was out of there.

Then, as she began to get to her feet, something caught her eye. A glint of something small and shiny under the table, right up against the wall, that might be a key. For a moment she was torn. What was the likelihood that this was the key she was looking for?

But then it had to fit something…

She had to lie down and stretch out flat before she could reach it. It felt right—long and narrow—and she emerged, flushed from the effort as she backed out, holding up the object to get a better look. Light, she needed more light. As she reached for the lamp it came on by itself. Startled, she stared at it for a moment, then grinned. That was so brilliant! She’d heard of lamps that did that…

But this was not the time to investigate. She turned her attention back to the small metallic object she’d picked up. ‘Oh, drat…’

‘Not one of yours, I take it?’

The voice, low and gravelly, had emerged from the heaped-up quilt, along with a mop of dark, tousled hair and a pair of heavy-lidded eyes. It was followed by a hand which tossed aside a remote and lifted the sliver of platinum from her open palm and, warm fingers brushing against her neck, held it up against her ear.

Not a key, but an earring. Long, slender…

And that was just his fingers.

‘No,’ he said, after looking at it and then at her for what seemed like an age, during which her heart took a unilateral decision not to beat—probably something to do with all the magnetism flowing from those electric blue eyes—before dropping it back into her hand. ‘Not your style.’

A sound—something incoherent that might have been agreement—emerged from Ginny’s throat. Recycled charity shop was cheap. That was its attraction. Whether it could be described as a style…

‘If you tell me what you’re looking for I might be able to help?’ he prompted.

More of Richard Mallory emerged from beneath the quilt as he propped himself up on one arm. Naked shoulders, a naked chest with a spattering of dark hair that arrowed down to a hard, flat stomach…

‘Um…’ she murmured, mesmerised.

‘I’m sorry?’ One brow kinked upward. ‘I didn’t quite catch that.’

The sleepy lids were deceptive. His eyes, she realised, were wide awake. How long had he been watching her? Had he witnessed her attack on his bedside drawer?

She swallowed hard. There was nothing to do but bluff it out and hope for the best. If she could handle a room full of eighteen-year-old undergraduates who thought they knew it all—and who almost certainly knew a lot more than her about pretty much anything other than Greek myth—she could surely handle one man…

As his eyes continued to burn into her, she decided she’d take the lecture hall any day. Unfortunately, it wasn’t an option. Bluff would have to do it.

‘I said, “um”,’ she replied, pushing her glasses up her nose as she found her ‘teacher’ voice. After all he couldn’t sack her…

He could, of course, call the police.

‘Um?’ He repeated the word back at her as if it was from some foreign language. One he’d never before encountered.

Bluff, bluff.

It was easy. She did it all the time. It was how she had got through the lectures she had given to help support herself through her doctorate. All she had to do, she reminded herself, was use the classic technique of imagining that he was naked. From what she’d seen so far she wasn’t finding it difficult. He probably was naked…

Oh, bad idea.

Think of something else. Her mother…

‘Not the acme of clear thought translated into speech—’ she said, her thoughts—and vocal cords—snapping right back into line ‘—but then you did startle me, Mr Mallory.’

This, for some reason, appeared to entertain him. ‘Do you expect me to apologise?’

‘That really isn’t necessary.’ She finally wrenched her gaze from the wide expanse of his shoulders and, scrambling to her feet, put a little distance between them. ‘It’s entirely my fault, after all. I didn’t realise you were here, or I wouldn’t have just…’ Her desperate attempt to appear cool in a difficult situation buckled under his undisguised amusement. He was, she realised belatedly, teasing her…

‘Just?’ he prompted.

‘Um…’ That foreign word again…

‘Just um?’

‘I wouldn’t have just walked in,’ she snapped. Then, because that seemed to lack something, she said, ‘I’d have knocked first.’

‘Really?’ His eyebrows suggested he was seriously surprised. ‘That would be a first.’

She frowned, confused, unable to drag her gaze from his shoulders. Or the way the muscle, emphasized by deep shadows, bunched up as he shrugged.

Then she realised what he was implying and felt herself blush. Of all the arrogant, self-opinionated…She wasn’t some Richard Mallory ‘groupie’, intent on flinging herself on his irresistible body!

‘If it’s a regular problem maybe you should keep your bedroom door locked,’ she advised, perhaps more sharply than was wise under the circumstances.

‘Maybe I should,’ he agreed. Then, bringing her back to the point, ‘So? What were you looking for?’

Her heart—which was having a seriously bad morning—skipped a beat. She should have legged it while she had the chance, instead of sticking around to chat. He might have dismissed the whole incident as a bad dream. She’d had worse nightmares.

‘Looking for?’ she repeated.

‘Under my bed.’

‘Oh.’

Help…

Her excuse had sounded perfectly reasonable as she’d rehearsed it in the safety of her own apartment. But then she’d never expected to have to use it. She’d be in and out in a flash, Sophie had promised.

When would she ever learn?

What had sounded reasonable as a back-up story, in the event that the cleaner returned early from her morning flirtation with the porter, lacked any real credibility when confronted with the man himself.

Or maybe it was just guilt turning the words to ashes in her mouth.

That was silly.

It wasn’t as if she was a real burglar, for heaven’s sake. She was only going to borrow the disk—it would be back on his desk before he’d missed it. Hardly a matter for the Crown Court.

Unless, of course, she killed Sophie.

‘In your own time,’ he encouraged.

Faced with a pair of sharp blue eyes that suggested Richard Mallory would not be so easy to flannel as a ‘daily’ with dalliance on her mind, that seemed a very attractive idea. Right now, however, she had a more pressing problem and she trawled her brain in a desperate attempt to come up with a story that was just a little less…ridiculous.

Her brain had, apparently, taken the day off.

But then why else would she be here?

Please, please, she prayed, let the floor open up and swallow me now. The floor refused to oblige.

She was out of time and stuck with the excuse she’d prepared earlier.

‘I was looking for my hamster,’ she said.

‘Excuse me?’ He laughed. ‘Did you say your hamster?’

Faced with his amusement she felt a certain irritation. A need to defend her story. It wasn’t that ridiculous.

Okay, so maybe it was. A kitten would have been cuter, but the cleaner would have known she didn’t have a kitten. Nothing uncaged was allowed within the portals of Chandler’s Reach.

‘He escaped,’ she said. ‘He made a break for it through the hedge and headed straight for your French windows.’ And when this didn’t elicit polite concern…‘It took me longer to get through it. He’s smaller,’ she elaborated when Mallory remained silent. ‘He was able to scoot underneath.’ Then, in desperation, ‘It’s really scratchy…’

She could not believe she was saying this. Richard Mallory’s expression suggested he was having problems with it too, but was making a manful effort not to laugh out loud.

In an attempt to distract him, she took a step closer and extended her hand.

‘We haven’t met, Mr Mallory, but we’re temporarily neighbours. I’m Iphegenia Lautour.’ Only the most truthful person in the entire world would own up to a name like that voluntarily, right? ‘I’m looking after Sir William and Lady McBride’s apartment. For the summer. Next door,’ she added, in case he didn’t know his neighbours. ‘While they’re away. Flat-sitting. You know—dusting the whatnot, watering the houseplants. Feeding the goldfish,’ she added. Then, as if there was nothing at all out of the ordinary in the situation, she said, ‘How d’you do?’

‘I think—’ he said, looking slightly nonplussed as he took her hand, gripping it firmly for a moment, holding it for longer than was quite necessary ‘—that I need notice of that question.’

He sat up, leaned forward and raked his hands through his hair, as if somehow he could straighten out his thoughts along with his unruly curls.

It did nothing for the curls, but the sight of his naked shoulders, a chest spattered with exactly the right amount of dark hair, left her with an urgent need to swallow.

He dragged his hands down over his face. ‘Along with coffee, orange juice and a shower. In no particular order of preference. I’ve had a hard night.’

Ginny didn’t doubt it. She’d seen the evidence for herself…

She gave a little squeak as he flung back the covers and swung his feet to the floor. Backed hurriedly away. Knocked the lamp, grabbed to stop it from falling and only made things worse, flinched as it hit the carpet.

Mallory stood up, reached down and set it back on the table, giving her plenty of time to see that he wasn’t, after all, totally naked but wearing a pair of soft grey shorts.

Naked enough. They clung to his hips by the skin of their teeth, exposing a firm flat belly and leaving little else to the imagination.

It was definitely time to get out of there.

‘I’m disturbing you,’ she said, groping behind her for the door handle but succeeding only in pushing the door shut. With her on the wrong side.

‘You could say that,’ he agreed, picking up the remote and using it to draw back the curtains so that daylight flooded into the room.

‘Neat trick,’ she said. ‘Is that how you turned on the light?’ It was a mistake to draw attention to herself because he turned those searching blue eyes on her.

One of them was definitely disturbed.

‘I’m really sorry—’

‘Don’t be,’ he said, cutting off her apology. ‘I’d have slept all day if you hadn’t woken me. Iphegenia?’ he prompted, with a frown. ‘What kind of name is that?’

‘The kind that no one can spell?’ she offered. Then, ‘My mother’s a classical scholar,’ she added—at least she was, when she could spare the time—as if that explained everything. He looked blank. ‘Iphegenia was the daughter of King Agamemnon. He sacrificed her to the gods in return for a fair wind to Troy. So that he could grab back his runaway sister-in-law. Helen.’

‘Helen?’ he repeated. If not dumb, definitely founded…

‘Of Troy.’

‘Oh, right, “…the face that launched a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Ilium”?’

‘That’s the one,’ she said. Then, ‘He got murdered by his wife for his trouble. But you probably knew that.’ There was more, a lot more, but years of explaining her unusual name had taught her that was about as much as anyone wanted to know. ‘Homer was writing about the dysfunctional family nearly three thousand years ago,’ she offered.

‘Yes.’ He looked, for a moment, as if he might pursue her mother’s choice of name… Then, thinking better of it, said, ‘Tell me about your wandering hamster. What’s his name? Odysseus?’

Irony. He’d just woken up and he could quote Christopher Marlowe, recall the names of mythical heroes and do irony. Impressive.

But then he was a genius.

‘Good try, but a bit of a mouthful for a hamster, don’t you think?’ she asked, keeping her mouth busy while her mind did some fast footwork.

‘I’d say Iphegenia is a bit of a mouthful for a girl,’ he said, as if he knew she was simply playing for time. ‘The kind of name that suggests your mother was not feeling particularly warm towards your father when she gave it to you. If I gave it any serious thought.’

He wasn’t even close.

‘So what is this runaway rodent called?’ he asked when she made no comment, pushing her for an answer.

‘Hector,’ she said.

‘Hector? Not Harry—as in Houdini?’

No, Hector. As in heroic Trojan warrior prince slain by Achilles. Classical scholarship ran in the family but she thought she’d probably said more than enough on that subject.

‘Harry who?’ she asked innocently.

His eyes narrowed and for a moment she was afraid she’d gone too far. ‘Never mind,’ he said, letting it go. ‘He must be quite a mover if you chased him up here. Didn’t the stairs slow him down?’

She hadn’t thought of that. Hadn’t thought, full stop. Certainly hadn’t even considered the possibility that Richard Mallory would be at home in bed recovering from a hot date instead of where he was supposed to be, in deepest Gloucestershire.

Thank you, Sophie…

She supposed she should be grateful that the woman with the black silk stockings wasn’t under the duvet with him. Although she would at least have offered a distraction.

Ginny attempted to recall exactly how large hamsters were. Four or five inches, perhaps, at full stretch? And she realised she was so deep in trouble that the only possibility of escape was to keep on digging in the hope of eventually tunnelling out.

‘Hector—’ she said, with a conviction she was far from feeling ‘—has thighs like a footballer. It’s all that running on his exercise wheel.’ Then, ‘Look, I’d better go—’ before his brain was fully engaged and he began to ask questions to which she had no answer ‘—and, um, let you have your shower.’

‘Oh, please, don’t rush off.’

He was across the room before she could escape, his hand flat against the door, towering over her as she backed up hard against it in an attempt to put some space between them so that he wouldn’t feel the wild, nervous hammering of her heart.

In an attempt to avoid the magnetic pull of his body.

‘I so rarely encounter this level of entertainment before breakfast.’

CHAPTER TWO

RICHARD MALLORY’S chest, those heroic shoulders, the warm male scent of his flesh, was making it very hard to breathe normally. A fact she was sure he knew only too well.

‘I—um—’

‘Why don’t you stay and join me?’

Join him?

With one hand keeping the door firmly shut, he used the other to deal with a wayward strand of hair that had been dragged from its scrunchy as she’d fought her way through the hedge and was now slowly descending across her face.

It wasn’t just his eyes that generated electricity. Her skin fizzed, tightened at his touch and not just on her cheek, her temple. Her entire body reacted as if it had been jump-started like some long dead battery.

No. Not long dead. Never charged.

‘Join you?’ she repeated, stupidly.

Did he mean in the shower?

Why didn’t that sound like a totally impossible idea? And what on earth was he doing to her hair?

She flattened herself against the door, moved her mouth in an attempt to form a coherent sentence. Something along the lines of What the hell do you think you’re doing? should do it. No, it would have to be something simpler. Stop…

He plucked a twig from her hair, holding it up for her inspection. ‘I hope you didn’t do Her Ladyship’s perfectly clipped hedge mortal damage.’ Then, without waiting for her to elaborate on the extent of the mayhem she’d caused in Lady McBride’s exquisite formal roof terrace, ‘I won’t be more than five minutes. Stay and tell me all about your athletic pet over some scrambled eggs—’

Five minutes? Eggs? Then reality sunk in.

‘Eggs?’ she repeated. ‘You meant join you for breakfast?’

His mouth widened in a lazy smile that deepened the lines bracketing his mouth.

‘What else?’

Her own mouth worked soundlessly for a moment before she finally managed to engage teeth and tongue and exclaim, ‘Are you serious?’ And feigning blank astonishment—which wasn’t difficult, blank perfectly described the state of her mind—she covered her blushes by snatching the twig from him and stuffing it into her pocket. ‘I had breakfast hours ago. It’s nearly lunchtime. I shouldn’t be here at all. I should be working…’

‘Plants to water, whatnots to dust…?’

‘A woman’s work…’ she agreed, leaving him to complete the saying. It wasn’t politically correct—her mother would have been shocked that she could even think such thoughts. But her mother wasn’t here to criticise and right at that moment she’d have said anything to escape…

All she had to do was move. All she had to do was remember how.

‘How did the McBrides find you?’ he asked while she was still thinking about it.

‘Find me?’ She hadn’t been lost… ‘Oh, I see. It was a personal introduction. I know their daughter-in-law. Philly. Slightly,’ she added. She wasn’t claiming any deep personal friendship. ‘She knew I needed somewhere to stay in London for the summer and they needed someone…’

‘To feed the goldfish?’

‘Look, I’d better go.’

But he wasn’t quite finished with her.

‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’

‘Am I?’

‘Hector?’ he prompted. ‘Surely you’re not going to abandon him?’

Drat with knobs on.

‘He could be anywhere,’ she offered just a little desperately, discovering too late that a make-believe pet could be as much trouble as a real one. ‘He’ll have found himself a quiet corner and gone to sleep by now.’ He was beginning to assume a presence and character all his own. ‘They’re nocturnal, you know.’ She swallowed. ‘H-hamsters.’

‘Is that a fact? Then I’ll be sure not to make too much noise. He must be tired after all that effort.’ And he finally straightened, releasing her from his personal force field which had held her fixed to the spot far more effectively than any door. When she still didn’t move he said, ‘Well, if you’re sure I can’t tempt you…’

‘No!’ Did that sound too vehement? She was beyond caring. ‘I really do have to go.’

‘If you insist.’ He made a gesture that suggested she was free to leave any time. ‘It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Iphegenia Lautour.’

He was laughing at her now and not making any real attempt to hide the fact. But that was okay. She’d been laughed at before and this was the warm, teasing kind that didn’t hurt. In fact, she was beginning to wonder if Sophie had misjudged him. He might be a shocking flirt, but he did seem to have the redeeming feature of a well-developed sense of humour…

‘Ginny,’ she said, her voice no longer crisp but unusually thick and soft.

It seemed to go with the tingling in her breasts, a curious weakness in her thighs. He had the most kissable mouth of any man she’d ever met, she decided. Not that she’d met many men she would cross the road to kiss.

Firm, wide, the lower lip a sensual invitation to help herself…

She caught her own lower lip between her teeth before she did something truly stupid, cooling it with her tongue.

‘People call me Ginny,’ she explained. ‘Usually. It’s shorter.’

‘And easier to spell.’ The muscles at the side of his jaw clenched briefly. Then, since she was clearly rooted to the spot, he opened the door and held it wide for her. ‘I’ll keep a look out for Hector, Ginny, and if I find him I’ll be sure to send him home.’

She was being dismissed. A minute ago she was desperate to escape. Now he was reduced to encouraging her to leave.

‘If Mrs Figgis, your cleaner—’ she added in case he wasn’t personally acquainted with the lady who kept his apartment free of dust ‘—doesn’t suck him up in her vacuum cleaner thinking he’s a lump of fluff,’ she said, before she could stop herself. Her urgent desire to flee evaporating the moment a swift exit offered itself.

‘Perhaps you’d better warn her,’ he suggested.

‘I will. And I’m, um, really sorry for disturbing you.’

‘I wouldn’t have—’ he paused, smiled ‘—um…missed it for the world. But now I really must take that shower, so unless you want to come and keep an eye on me, make sure I don’t drown the heroic Hector…’ He stood back, offering her a clear route to his bathroom.

This time there was no hiding the crimson tide that swept from her neck to her hairline as she finally caught on to what he already knew. That she’d become just one more case of iron filings clinging to his personal magnet.

‘No…’ She backed through the door, raising her hand, palm up, in a self-protective little gesture. ‘Really, Mr Mallory, I trust you.’

‘Rich,’ he said. ‘People call me Rich.’

‘Yes,’ she mumbled. ‘I know. I’ve seen it in the papers…’

Then she turned and fled.

Ginny couldn’t believe she’d just blundered into a strange man’s bedroom then lied shamelessly while he flirted with her. Worse, that she’d responded as if he’d reached out and flipped a switch—turning her on had been that easy. And, with the game so swiftly won, he’d lived up to his reputation and just as quickly become bored.

She groaned as she ran down the spiral staircase, wishing that it were possible to stop the clock, rewind time…

‘Miss Lautour?’ Mrs Figgis, standing at the foot blocking her way, a puzzled expression creasing her face, brought her to an abrupt halt. ‘What are you doing here? How did you get in?’

The voice of Rich Mallory’s cleaner had much the same instantly bracing effect as the proverbial cold shower. Allegedly. She’d never found the need for such self-abuse.

‘Through the French windows, Mrs Figgis,’ Ginny said, clinging to the truth. Her voice shocked back to crispness. Besides, having bearded the lion in his den and escaped in one piece, she wasn’t about to be scared by someone wielding nothing more dangerous than a duster.

Nevertheless, she held her position two steps up. Just to even up the cleaner’s height advantage.

A mistake. It just drew attention to her boots. Puzzlement instantly shifted to disapproval.

‘Can I ask you to be careful when you’re going round with a vacuum cleaner?’ she asked. Getting it in before she was on the receiving end of a lecture about leaving footwear at the door—particularly anything as unsuitable as boots—in keeping with the Japanese theme of the décor. ‘I’m afraid I’ve lost my hamster—’

‘Hamster?’

What was it about hamsters that was so unbelievable?

All across the country people kept hamsters as pets. As an undergraduate, she’d briefly shared rooms with a girl who’d kept one. It had escaped all the time. It had even got under the floorboards once. Life with a hamster was a constant drama.

That was where she’d got the idea in the first place…

‘Small, buff coloured rodent. About so big.’ She sketched the rough dimensions with her hands. ‘He’s called Hector,’ she said, her head distancing itself from her mouth as she elaborated unnecessarily. Or maybe not.

She probably thought a woman who kept a hamster as a pet would be a sad-sack obsessive—not true, her room-mate had been the life and soul of any party—but Richard Mallory would undoubtedly mention the incident, be suspicious if Mrs Figgis knew nothing about it. With good reason.

‘Easy to mistake for fluff in a dark corner,’ she added.

‘There is no fluff in any corner of this apartment,’ the woman declared indignantly.

‘No, of course not. I didn’t mean…’ Then, ‘I’m sure Mr Mallory will explain.’

‘Mr Mallory?’ Mrs Figgis blanched. ‘He’s still here?’ So she wasn’t the only one who’d been caught out. ‘He should have left hours ago.’

‘Really?’ she said. Oh, listen to her to pretending not to know! She was shocked at just how convincing she sounded. ‘Well, it’s still early.’ If you were a multi-millionaire businessman who’d just had a hard night with a girl who wore black silk stockings. ‘Actually, I think he might appreciate coffee. And he did mention something about scrambled eggs…’

She didn’t hang around to see whether Mrs Figgis considered it any part of her duties to make coffee rather than drink it. Instead, she headed swiftly in the direction of the French windows, legging it across the formerly immaculate raked gravel of Richard Mallory’s roof garden before scrambling through Her Ladyship’s now less than pristine hedge.

She didn’t stop until she was safely inside, with her own French windows shut firmly against the outside world.

Only then did she lean back against them and let out a huge groan.

Rich Mallory straightened under the shower, letting the hot water ease the knots in his shoulders, the ache from the back of his neck. These all-night sessions took it out of him. They were a young man’s game.

Then he grinned.

Okay, he was well past the downhill marker of thirty, but he could still teach the whizkids who worked for him a thing or two, even if he did need a massage to straighten out the kinks next morning.

Maybe he should have lived up—or was that down?—to his reputation and taken up the offer in Ginny Lautour’s disturbing eyes. They were curiously at odds with her clothes, her mousy, not quite blonde hair caught back in a kid’s scrunchy adorned with a velvet duck-billed platypus; he knew it was a duck-billed platypus because he’d been handbagged by his five-year-old niece into buying her one just like it.

But there was nothing childlike about her eyes. A curious mixture of grey and green and slightly slanted beneath finely marked brows, they were intense, witch’s eyes…

His grin faded as he shook his head, flipped the jet to cold and stood beneath it while he counted slowly to twenty. Only then did he reach for his robe, towelling his hair as he padded back to his bedroom, trailing wet footprints across the pale carpet.

Orange juice. Coffee. Eggs. In that order. He’d been wise to pass on the side order of sex. Not that he hadn’t been tempted. Beneath the shapeless clothes, Ginny Lautour’s body had hinted at the kind of curves that invited a man’s hand to linger. And her eyes had invited a lot more than that. But he wasn’t ready to be bewitched just yet.

He’d beaten off several attempts to break through his security cordon, steal the latest software his company had developed which was now going through the rigorous testing phase. He’d hoped that they, whoever they were, had given up. Apparently not.

But he was smiling again as he picked up a phone, hitting the fast dial to his Chief Software Engineer as he headed downstairs in the direction of the kitchen. Despite the fact that she had been lying through her pretty teeth—not even the most athletic hamster could have got into that drawer—he’d enjoyed watching Ginny getting into deeper and deeper water as she had tried to extricate herself from an impossible situation.

For a girl in the industrial espionage business she had a quite remarkable propensity to blush. It gave her a look of total innocence that was so completely at odds with the hot look in her eyes that a man might just be fooled into believing it.

Maybe he’d be a little less relaxed about it if there’d been anything of any value in his apartment for her to steal. As it was, he was rather looking forward to her next move.

‘Marcus.’ He jerked his mind back to more immediate concerns as his call was picked up. ‘I’ve finally cracked the problem we’ve been having.’

Then, as the spiral turned inward so that he was facing into the vast expanse of his living room, he saw the open bottle of champagne standing on the sofa table and belatedly remembered the luscious redhead he’d taken to the retirement party he’d thrown for one of his senior staff.

‘I’ll be with you in half an hour to bring the team up to speed,’ he said, not waiting for an answer before he disconnected.

Well, that explained the earring. It was Lilianne’s. She must have taken him at his word when he had told her that he’d just be five minutes, invited her to make herself comfortable.

How long had she lain in his bed, waiting for him to join her? How long before she’d stormed out in a huff? Even he could see that it would have to be a huff. At the very least.

Long enough to write him a note and tie it to the neck of the champagne bottle with one of her stockings, anyway. Presumably to emphasize what he’d missed.

He sighed. She’d been playing kiss-chase with him for weeks and he’d be lying if he denied that he’d enjoyed the game. Hard to get was so rare these days. He wasn’t fooled, of course. He understood the game too well for that. She believed the longer she held out, the greater would be her victory.

Not that he was objecting.

He’d been looking forward to the promised pay off. Which would have been last night if he hadn’t suddenly caught a glimpse of the answer to a problem that had been giving his entire development team a headache for the last couple of weeks. He checked his wristwatch. The best part of ten hours ago.

He tugged at the stocking, caught a hint of the musky scent she’d been wearing. He really needed to concentrate on one thing at a time, he decided, as the napkin fell into the melted ice.

Work—nine-till-five. Personal life—

Forget it. Work was his life.

He shrugged, picked up the napkin. Her note was short and to the point.

LOSER.

Succinct. To the point. No wasted words. He admired brevity in a woman.

However, there was still the earring found by his uninvited caller. An earring not meant to be found by a casual glance. It suggested that she’d given herself a chance to call him—after sufficient time had elapsed for him to understand that she was seriously annoyed—and offer him the opportunity to tease her into forgiving him. Resume the chase.

And he grinned.

Then, as the scent of coffee brewing reached him, his eyes narrowed. It seemed as if Ginny Lautour hadn’t been in as much of a hurry as she’d made out…

He left the note where it was and, tossing the stocking over the arm of the sofa, headed for the kitchen.

‘So, you decided to stay for breakfast after all—’

He came to an abrupt halt as he realised it was his cleaner—rather than his interesting new neighbour—who was making coffee. It left him with oddly mixed feelings.

Relief that she hadn’t, after all, taken up his casual invitation to stick around, taking advantage of an unexpected opportunity to get close to him. That she hadn’t been that obvious.

Disappointment…for much the same reason.

Not that he doubted she’d be back. Like the earring, Hector gave her all the excuse she needed to drop by any time she felt like it. Which was fine. He didn’t believe for one minute that she was a criminal mastermind. He simply wanted to know who was pulling her strings.

‘Good morning, Mr Mallory. I’ve made fresh coffee. Would you like me to cook breakfast for you?’

‘No. Thank you, Mrs Figgis.’ He’d lost his appetite. ‘I’ll have something at the office.’ Then, ‘You’ll keep a look-out for Miss Lautour’s hamster?’

‘Of course. I’m sorry she disturbed you,’ she said. ‘If I’d realised you were home…’

‘Late night. No problem.’

Far from it. If he’d left for the office at the usual time, or even taken this Friday off as he had originally planned and driven off into deepest Gloucestershire, Ginny Lautour could have searched his flat from top to bottom at her leisure and he doubted it would have crossed his cleaner’s mind to even mention it.

The hamster, he realised, was a clever excuse. It was possible he’d underestimated the girl. No, that wasn’t right, either. She might blush like a girl, but she had the eyes, the body of a woman…

‘She’s staying in the McBrides’ apartment this summer?’ he asked. It wouldn’t hurt to double check.

‘That’s right. Keeping an eye on the place. She’s a very quiet young lady,’ she said. ‘For a student.’

Maybe. Being quiet didn’t preclude dishonesty. The prize of newly developed Mallory software was enough to tempt the most innocent of souls. Or maybe she was doing it for some man.

She might blush like a nineteenth-century village maiden, but those eyes didn’t belong to a nice quiet girl.

‘She’s a student?’

‘According to Lady McBride’s daily.’

‘And she’s living there on her own?’

‘Yes. She wants some peace and quiet to work, apparently.’

‘I see. Well, let me know if you find the creature.’

‘Yes, Mr Mallory.’

He poured himself coffee, calling his secretary as he retreated to his bedroom.

‘Wendy,’ he said, as she picked up the phone. ‘I need you to organise some flowers.’

‘For the lovely Lilianne?’ she asked, hopefully.

‘No.’ She’d forfeited the flowers and the apology when she’d indulged herself with that cryptic note.

For that he’d make her sweat a bit before he called her again.

‘What happened?’ Wendy demanded, interrupting his train of thought.

‘What? Oh, nothing happened.’

‘Nothing? You left the party with the most beautiful woman in the room in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other. What went wrong?’

‘Not a thing. I just had an idea, that’s all. I didn’t think it would take more than five minutes to check it out—’

‘And before you noticed, it was morning. You are the absolute limit, Richard.’

‘I’m a total loss as a human being,’ he agreed. ‘But my computer loves me.’

‘A computer won’t keep you warm in your old age.’

‘No, but it’ll pay the electricity company to do the job.’

‘You’ll end up a lonely old bachelor,’ she warned.

‘Read the gossip columns, Wendy,’ he said, rapidly growing bored with this conversation. ‘There are no lonely old millionaires. Bachelor or otherwise.’ Then, ‘The flowers are for my sister. It’s her wedding anniversary.’

‘I’ve already ordered some.’

‘Have you? When?’

‘The moment the invitation arrived. I offered to have a little bet with the girls in the office on the likelihood of you wriggling out of a long weekend of come-and-join-us marital bliss. Your sister, bless her, isn’t subtle. She wants you married and producing cousins for her own offspring while there’s a chance they’ll be in the same generation. But they all know you too well. I had no takers. Not even the new girl in the software lab.’

She was kidding. She had to be kidding…

‘Save the smug gloating for the ladies room, Wendy, and sort out a working lunch for the research and development team in the boardroom for one o’clock. I’ll be there in thirty minutes—’

‘I really think you should send Lilianne flowers too,’ she said, not in the least bothered by his Chairman of the Board act. ‘At the very least.’

Wendy had been with him since he’d started the company and had seen him through the bad times as well as the good. She thought it gave her the right to treat him like a rather bossy nanny. Occasionally, he allowed her to get away with it. But not today.

‘I really don’t have the time for this—’

‘Is the situation salvageable, do you think? What kind of statement do you want to make?’

Who did he think he was kidding? She always got away with it.

‘No statement of any kind.’ But, since he recognised a brick wall when he saw one, and he’d meant it when he had said he hadn’t got time for petty details, he went on, ‘Okay, I’ll concede on the flowers.’ And honesty compelled him to admit that Lilianne had had a point. She did deserve an apology. ‘But they are not to be red roses. Not roses of any hue.’

‘Terribly vulgar, red roses,’ she agreed. ‘And, besides, you’re right. It would be unkind to raise any serious expectations in the lady’s breast. She is, after all, just another passing fancy.’

‘And what the devil is that supposed to mean?’

‘Only that she’s out of the same mould as every girl you’ve ever dated. Only the names—and hair colour—change.’ About to protest, he realised it would be quicker to just let her get on with it. ‘But you’re like all men; you see the pretty wrapping and you’re hooked. Temporarily. Of course, the clever women realise very quickly that they’re always going to be playing second fiddle to your computer and throw you back—’

Okay, that was it. ‘Is this conversation going somewhere?’

She sighed. ‘Obviously not. Leave it with me. I’ll sort out something that will put her in a forgiving mood. Anything else?’

‘No. Yes. Have you ever kept a hamster?’

‘A hamster is not a substitute for a proper relationship,’ she replied sternly. ‘But I suppose it’s a marginal improvement on a computer. Why?’

‘I’m informed there’s one on the loose in my apartment.’

‘Then guard your cables. My kids had one and, I promise you, they can chew through anything.’

‘Oh, great. Better make that an hour while I make sure that at least my study is a hamster free zone.’

He might not be totally convinced about the hamster, but he wasn’t prepared to take any chances.

Miss Iphegenia Lautour might have a ridiculous propensity to blush for a grown woman. He wasn’t, however, about to overlook the possibility that she could have let loose a small furry friend in order to provide herself with a legitimate excuse for searching his apartment.

Why pretend when you could do it for real?

An answer immediately offered itself. Why would she complicate things with livestock?

A real hamster would, sooner or later, be found. Maybe too soon. An imaginary one, on the other hand, would provide her with endless opportunities to return.

Just how clever was she? The image might be pure innocence, but the eyes had glowed with something that had warned him not to take any chances.

He’d be well-advised, he decided, not to take anything for granted, but to assume the worst.

Ginny, too agitated to be able to concentrate, didn’t make it to the Underground station before she abandoned all thoughts of work. Instead, she bought a sandwich and a carton of coffee and retired to a small park where she tossed crumbs to the sparrows, putting off the evil moment when she’d have to call Sophie and let her know that she’d failed.

But eventually she ran out of sandwiches and time.

She dug out her cellphone, keyed in the number. Her call was answered with an alacrity that suggested Sophie had been sitting with the phone in her hand.

‘What happened?’ she demanded without preamble.

There was no soft answer. ‘I’m sorry, Sophie, but his desk was locked. I tried to find a key but when I went upstairs…’ She hesitated. Did she want to entertain Sophie with her encounter with Richard Mallory? Definitely not. ‘I was interrupted.’

‘Interrupted? Who by?’ she demanded.

‘It’s fine, Sophie. No problem.’

‘Oh.’ For a moment Ginny had the feeling that she was disappointed. ‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it? You can have another try tomorrow.’

No! ‘Look, why don’t you just own up? Surely Richard Mallory will understand? You can’t be the first person ever to delete a file.’

‘You don’t understand! I should have backed it up! I should have made copies! I should—’

‘Sophie! Pull yourself together!’ Heavens, she’d never been in this kind of state about a job before. She must be really desperate to keep it. ‘It has to be in the system somewhere. Can’t you flutter your eyelashes at one of those clever young men who work for him?’

‘No! This is a serious job and I want to keep it. I can’t admit to messing up. Besides, it’s not that easy. Go poking around in the memory of the mainframe and alarms get triggered off. The man is paranoid about security.’

‘Well, thank you for telling me that,’ Ginny said drily.

‘What? Oh…’ Then she laughed. ‘Oh, I see what you mean. You’re safe enough in his apartment. He wouldn’t expect anyone to break in there, would he? And it’s not as if it’s his precious secret development stuff you’re after.’

‘But would he believe that?’

‘He’s never going to know. I’ve told you, it’s his sister’s wedding anniversary and he’s playing happy families in Gloucestershire.’

Maybe that’s where he should have been, but he’d clearly been distracted by a pair of silk clad legs…

‘Listen to me, Ginny. It is absolutely vital that you get that disk. I have to prove to my father that I can keep a job.’

‘Why?’

There was a pause, then a sigh, then Sophie said, ‘He’s had enough of subsidising me, that’s why.’

Something she’d never have to worry about, Ginny thought. But what she’d never had, she’d never miss. ‘Hasn’t he threatened to cut you off without so much as a brass farthing at least half a dozen times since you left home? You know he doesn’t mean it.’

‘He does this time and it’s all my sister’s fault,’ Sophie added.

‘What’s Kate done to deserve the blame?’

‘She got married. To a wealthy barrister. A man who will, in the fullness of time, inherit a title and a country estate. It’s put ideas into Daddy’s head. He’s compared the cost of a wedding against the cost of supporting me and decided a wedding makes more economic sense in the long term. He’s actually got some chinless wonder lined up and panting to take me off his hands.’

‘Does he have a title and country estate to look forward to?’

‘Does it matter if he hasn’t got a chin? I have three choices, Ginny. Marry him. Marry someone else. Or support myself.’

‘Tough choice,’ Ginny said.

But Sophie didn’t get sarcasm. ‘The worst!’ she exclaimed. ‘All that’s saving me from a fate worse than death is this job…’

‘He might not be a chinless wonder, Sophie. He might be, well, jolly nice.’

‘Of course he’ll be “nice”. I don’t want “nice”, I want…’ She stopped abruptly. ‘I mean, really, Ginny, would you marry someone your father had picked out for you?’ Then, ‘Oh, damn! I’m sorry…I didn’t mean…’

Oh, rats! Now Sophie felt guilty.

‘It’s okay,’ Ginny said quickly. ‘Don’t fret.’

Despite the fact that they were total opposites in just about every respect, they’d bonded on their first day at school. It had been Sophie who, as the social queen of the class, had saved her from the fallout of being given the kind of name that no five-year-old should be saddled with.

As the solitary child of a feminist scholar—dismissive of playgroups and nursery schools—Ginny had little experience of mixing with children of her own age. She hadn’t realised that her name was odd until she ran into the cruel ridicule of the classroom.

Sophie had recognised a born outsider and, for some reason neither of them had ever quite fathomed, had taken her under her wing. Maybe it was the attraction of opposites. She hadn’t questioned it at the time, too grateful that since everyone wanted to be part of Sophie’s charmed circle the teasing had instantly stopped.

While her odd background, a lack of interest in the latest fashion, boys or parties and an inclination for solitary study had meant that she’d never actually been part of the group, she’d never been an outsider after that, at least not at school.

And once out in the big wide world she’d quickly learned to deal with the rest of the world in her own way.

‘Look, don’t worry. I’ll have another go, okay?’

‘Will you? Thank goodness Philly talked her in-laws into letting you “sit” their apartment for the summer. I just wish you could have had my spare room. Only Aunt Cora has saddled me with visitors for the summer.’

‘It is her apartment, Sophie.’ And, much as she loved Sophie, she was in London to work. She’d get a lot more of that done in the quiet of the McBrides’ apartment.

‘I suppose. And jolly lucky in the circumstances.’

That, Ginny thought, rather depended upon your point of view.

But it would be okay, she reassured herself. By now Mallory would have left for his delayed weekend in the country. All she had to do was get past Mrs Figgis and her duster. Which actually might not be that difficult…

‘Hector,’ she said, as she dropped her cellphone into her bag. ‘You’re back on.’

‘Richard?’

Richard Mallory looked up from the pad on which he’d been doodling a hamster. Wearing outsize spectacles. A slightly dishevelled hamster with a twig dangling over one ear and her cheeks aflame…

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