His touch set her unruly pulse galloping again.

What is wrong with me? I regularly get wrapped up in the arms of the most beautiful men in the business. They don’t do this to me!

The breeze off the sea was cool. She refused to shiver, but they were walking so close that he picked it up.

“Cold?”

“Maybe a little.”

He stopped at once and took off his jacket. Before Jemima could think of a thing to say, he had swung it around her shoulders and taken her hand again, urging them on.

“Better?”

The jacket was surprisingly heavy. The silky lining slithered along her exposed skin like a live creature. She felt embraced by it. Soothed and somehow protected. And so warm! It was like cuddling up in front of a warm fire on a cold night. Like basking in sunshine.

Like being loved.

Oh, boy, am I in trouble here.

THE WEDDING CHALLENGE

Chased to the altar—three independent cousins swept off their feet by the most eligible Englishmen!

Pepper, Izzy and Jemima Jane are cousins—with nothing in common except the gorgeous red hair they’ve inherited from their grandmother! They even grew up on different continents: Pepper is heiress to an American business empire, Izzy and Jemima shared their very English childhood as adopted sisters….

But do they have more in common than they realize?

For the first time in their lives the three cousins find themselves together: as a family, as friends, as business partners. And they’re about to discover that they’re not so different from each other after all!

Pepper, Izzy and Jay Jay are thoroughly modern women, determined to be ruled by the head, not the heart. Now their lives are turned upside down as each meets a man who challenges her to let love into her life—with dramatic consequences!

Pepper had an unexpected encounter in The Independent Bride (#3747)

Izzy met her match in The Accidental Mistress (#3776)

Now Jemima is the last of the cousins to find her man—in The Duke’s Proposal.

The Duke’s Proposal

Sophie Weston

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To Kate

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

THE tall, lithe man leaned on the balustrade and looked out to sea. The simple cottage was hidden away in the hotel grounds, a long way from the hustle and bustle.

He gave a deep sigh of pleasure.

Night. Warmth. A breeze, soft as a woman’s breath, across his skin.

Voices wafted over the murmurous water but he was alone. Just as he always was.

So? That was what he had chosen all those years ago. That was what he had stuck with. You make your choices. Then you live by them.

But sometimes, on a perfect night like this, when the air was heavy with the scents of leaves and the sea, he found himself wondering. What if it had been different? How would it feel if she were here with him?

‘“The not impossible she”,’ quoted Niall Blackthorne aloud, mocking himself.

Across the bay, the entrance to Casino Caraibe Royale was lit up like Las Vegas. Already people were arriving in their hired limousines. Pretty soon the steel band would start.

Party time, thought Niall.

He shook himself out of his uncharacteristic reverie and stretched lazily in the gathering dark. He was shirtless, his tanned legs bare under the disreputable denim shorts. At nightfall the air was still warm along the skin. It was only later that the wind off the sea would really get up. And he would go to work.

He grinned, thinking about it. Showered and smooth-shaven, his hair gleaming blue-black in the moonlight, his tuxedo tailored to perfection, he would drive over to the casino. He would circulate among the tourists and the professional gamblers, aloof and mysterious, and play blackjack and roulette and poker.

Sometimes he won, and people envied him. Sometimes he lost, and they marvelled at his cool indifference. But either way they kept their distance. Even the women who fancied themselves in love with the enigmatic gambler never stayed. He never wanted them to.

Now, just for a moment, in the hot, quiet night, he could pretend that he was the beach bum he looked like. There were compensations for being alone, he reminded himself wryly. No woman would tolerate his beach bum side for long. Even if he wanted her to.

And of course he didn’t. His grin died. Soberly, he looked at the shifting starlit ocean.

Face the truth, Niall.

He was a one-woman man. And the one woman belonged to someone else.

CHAPTER ONE

THE big, bustling room fell silent when Jemima Dare walked in.

Rooms did that these days. It was no more than a collective intake of breath. But it was more eloquent than a drum roll. It said, Love her or loathe her, the Queen is here.

That was what she was now, thought Jemima. The Queen of this little world.

She could feel the eyes. And the expectations. A wall of expectations pressing down on her. For a moment she felt as if she could hardly breathe.

Then she got a grip. Never disappoint your public…

So Jemima Dare flung back the gorgeous Titian hair, narrowed the famous amber eyes and smiled blindly into the silence.

It had started the moment Belinda Cosmetics chose her to front their international campaigns, that silence. Now she was on the cover of this month’s Elegance Magazine for the second time in a year and her crown was assured. Every model in the room was green with envy—and far too many of them loathed her because of it.

Be careful what you wish for; you might get it.

Instinctively Jemima squared her shoulders.

‘Hi,’ she said to the room at large.

But already everyone was back at work, adjusting the designer clothes, balancing on cruelly high heels, concentrating on hair and make-up. One or two of the women who’d used to be her friends before she was Queen smiled back. A new girl, fifteen if she was a day, was so awed that she looked as if she were going to cry. But nobody spoke.

Although the room was a furnace, after the ice and hail in the streets, Jemima felt frozen from her fingertips to her heart’s core.

Be careful what you wish for…

Well, she had wished. And she had got it. And not a thing could she do about it, not any more. The die was cast.

It had been cast years ago. She had been seventeen. She had believed Basil Blane when he’d said, ‘Babe, you’re a natural. I can make you a star.’

And, of course, he had. She was a star, all right. Queen of the catwalk. Imperious priestess of the photo shoot. Basil had just never said what it would cost.

For a moment she looked round this room of women who couldn’t even bring themselves to say hello to her and the amber eyes were bleak. Then she shrugged. The price of success, she told herself cynically. She lengthened her panther’s prowl and wove an expert way through the racks of shrouded clothes and palpitating assistants.

She had been navigating the backstage chaos of international fashion shows for five years and more. She knew how to do it. There was a job to do here, and she was good at it.

‘You’re here,’ said the designer. His eyes were wild and his hands colder than her own. This was his first big show. ‘I called and called. Don’t you ever answer your phone?’

Jemima sidestepped the question. ‘I don’t let people down.’ That was true. Almost the only thing in her life she was proud of now. ‘Relax, Francis. I’m going to do you proud.’

True to her word, she gave the performance of her life out on the catwalk—a prowling predator in minimalist silks. The show got a standing ovation. The designer gathered the models about him and wept.

Jemima dropped her head on his shoulder. The waterfall of Titian hair cascaded artistically across the front of his leather jacket. It looked spontaneous, friendly, even affectionate. And it would make a hell of a photograph.

Everyone knew that. That was how they had all sat round and planned it last night. The PR people, the publicist, Francis…

Spontaneous? Huh!

Just for a moment, when they’d told her last night, she had flared up. She was fresh in from Paris, and travelling made her edgy these days. For half a second she’d forgotten that they paid her a lot of money to pretend to be spontaneous.

‘You’re trying to get a rumour going about Francis and me,’ she’d accused them, with more accuracy than tact.

People started to read their briefing notes avidly, or stared round the untidy boardroom. No one met her eyes.

In the end it was left to the head honcho to spell out the facts of life.

‘Just do the business, Jemima,’ Belinda’s UK marketing director said wearily. ‘You’re the face of Belinda. We need the column inches. Madame’s in town for the show.’

And everyone, but everyone, was scared of Madame.

So now Jemima leaned against Francis and smiled up at him as if he was the boy next door, instead of a workaholic dress designer with no known social graces. The paparazzi snapped away, delighted. Columnists scribbled. There was even a romantic sigh or two.

You could see the headlines, Jemima thought dryly. Jemima in Love at Last?

She kept her smile so firmly in place her ears hurt.

Once they were behind the curtains Francis removed his arm at once. He looked almost uncomfortable, as if he shouldn’t be touching the Queen.

‘Thanks, babe.’

He called everyone ‘babe’, though. That illusion of intimacy was just for the camera. Once the performance was over, they both knew she was unattainable. Every man in the world knew she was unattainable. Except one. And he…

She swallowed.

‘You were right,’ said Francis, not noticing. ‘You did me proud.’

‘A pleasure.’ Jemima’s smile didn’t reach her eyes.

‘I suppose you don’t—?’ He was talented and obsessed, but suddenly he sounded uncertain.

She was easing off his last creation with neat, practised movements. One of his staff was helping. But at that she looked over her shoulder.

‘Don’t what?’ She slithered all the way out of the silky tunic and handed it to the assistant.

‘Don’t feel like a meal later?’ he muttered. His ears had gone pink. And not because she was down to her underwear.

Jemima sighed inwardly. Be nice, she told herself. Be nice. It’s not his fault he has the social sense of a toadstool.

‘No. Sorry, Francis. Madame’s in town. I could be summoned at any moment.’

Relief flashed in his eyes. He masked it quickly. ‘Another time, then.’

It was so unflattering Jemima nearly laughed aloud. She only didn’t because his assistant was hovering. Francis hadn’t noticed, but Jemima was more alert these days. She was almost certain that the assistant had a hotline to at least one of the tabloids.

‘Mmm, great. Call me?’ She flung a sweet, poisonous smile at the assistant. ‘Got that?’

The assistant was wooden. She transferred the tunic to its padded hanger without comment. But the air sizzled.

Jemima reached for her bra and clipped herself into it at speed.

Francis blinked. ‘You really were great,’ he said hastily.

‘Thank you.’

He hesitated. Then he said, ‘You just get better and better, don’t you?’

Jemima was surprised. It showed.

Francis laughed, bouncing into candour on a great spurt of relief. ‘Oh, you were always gorgeous. But the last few months there’s something new. Like you’re dangerous or something.’

She was pulling on silky pantyhose with care, but at that she stopped, startled.

’Dangerous?’

Francis might be socially unflattering but he was a professional. ‘It’s very sexy,’ he said reassuringly.

Suddenly, Jemima was charmed. She gave him her first genuine smile of the day. ‘That’s really sweet of you, Francis. Thank you.’

‘You’re better than you know.’ He patted her shoulder awkwardly. ‘Now I gotta go mingle. Where are you due next?’

This was London Fashion Week, and the models were running from fashion show to fashion show at full tilt.

Jemima sighed. ‘Meeting with the PR people. Unless Madame Belinda blows her whistle first.’

‘What it is to be a supermodel.’ He was only half joking.

‘Semi-super. The days of the big celebrity are gone,’ said Jemima, pulling on slim tobacco leather trousers and a black cut-away top.

‘You could just be bringing them back.’

‘Some hope!’

She shrugged rapidly into the matching jacket. It was as soft as glove leather. It would be freezing outside in a London February—but what the hell. There might be photographers out there. The Queen of Top Models couldn’t bundle up in winter linings and woolly mittens. However much she might want to.

‘And then what? Back to Paris?’

She shook her head. ‘I’ve got a shoot in New York. Fly out tomorrow morning.’ At least in theory, she thought, but didn’t say.

If Madame Belinda was on the warpath she was quite capable of cancelling a contract at twenty-four hours’ notice.

Jemima gave a little shiver. If she lost the high-profile Belinda contract her career was over and she knew it. And then what?

No point in thinking about it. She would have to deal with it when it happened. So she concentrated on the most important thing she could deal with now.

She snapped huge gypsy hoops into her ears and fluffed out her swirl of shining fox-red hair. Casting one quick, professional look into the mirror, she paused for barely a moment.

‘Good,’ she told her image. ‘Very good. High pneumonia risk, but good.’

The designer laughed. He should have been out among his audience, schmoozing the fashion correspondents. But for some reason he still lingered.

‘I mean it, Jemima. You’re a real star.’

She fished her big shoulder-bag out from among the chaos of bags and shoes on the floor.

‘Well, don’t hold it against me,’ she said flippantly. ‘It won’t last.’

He goggled. ‘What?’

Jemima was already regretting her momentary impulse to honesty. She gave him a wide, photogenic smile. ‘Forget it. I’ve got to scoot. The limo is waiting.’

They air-kissed.

‘You really made the show—’ he called after her.

But the door was already closing behind her.

The street was crowded with slow-moving traffic, but Jemima spotted her limousine at once. She knew the car. Knew the driver. Insisted that she always had the same one when she was in London. It was one of the reasons she was beginning to get a name for being demanding.

Behind her back they called her the Beast, the Dreaded Diva, the prima donna of pointless demands. They said there was no reason for her list of requirements on transport and lodging and entertainment, that she just did it because she liked to keep people jumping. Because she could.

If they only knew.

She slid into the back seat, stretched out her long legs and fished the mobile phone out of her designer bag. She bit her lip. Braced herself. Switched it on.

She ran through the voice messages quickly. She was summoned to Madame Belinda at the Dorchester at three. Well, it could be worse. She did not look at the text messages.

The PR agency were taking her to lunch at the Savoy. Two women, hardly less elegant than she was herself, were waiting on low, luxurious sofas, with a dish of canapés already on the polished wooden table between them. They offered wine, a cocktail, champagne. Jemima declined the lot.

‘Bad for the skin.’ She sank into a deep armchair with model-girl grace. ‘I’ll have a glass of water.’

The other two exchanged resigned glances. Difficult, they said without words.

Jemima winced inwardly. She had worked with these women for over a year. Her sister Izzy was even going to marry the brother of Abby, the junior on the team. And they still treated her as something between royalty and a delinquent five-year-old. They satisfied her every whim because she was Jemima Dare, the face of Belinda, and every magazine in the world wanted her to work for them. But they didn’t have to pretend that they liked it.

Be careful what you wish for…

They exchanged glances again, with purpose. A prepared attack, interpreted Jemima. She braced herself.

‘Do you want to check your messages before we start?’ asked Abby, confirming her suspicions.

Jemima tensed inwardly. ‘No, thank you.’

‘Then would you mind turning off your phone? We don’t want to be interrupted.’

‘It’s off,’ she said curtly.

They exchanged another one of those looks. Definitely a prepared attack.

Silently Abby handed her a folder.

‘Do you want the good news or the bad news first?’ asked Molly di Perretti. Not being family, even remotely, she didn’t have to mince her words.

Jemima put the folder on the table and sipped sparking water from a crystal glass. ‘Good. I’m an optimist.’

Molly tapped the folder. ‘Column inches up again. You were the model most talked about in the international press last month.’

‘Great.’

‘The bad news,’ pursued Molly hardily, ‘is what they’re saying.’

Jemima raised her eyebrows.

‘You work less, demand more. You’re an arrogant cow and everyone hates you.’ Molly’s tone was forensic.

Jemima did not blink. ‘I see.’

Lady Abigail, who was going to have to walk side by side down the aisle with Jemima behind Izzy Dare one day in autumn, and was not looking forward to it, tried a softer approach.

‘It’s so easy to get a bad name in this business. You’re just going to have to be a bit more careful.’

Molly said nothing. Loudly.

Jemima looked at her sardonically. ‘Go on, Molly. Spit it out. I can take it.’

Molly clearly agreed. ‘Abby’s too easy on you. You’re getting a name for being a spoilt brat because you’re behaving like a spoilt brat.’

Abby groaned.

The other two ignored her.

‘Your demands are getting out of control. It’s not just the other models who think you’ve lost the plot.’ Molly started to tick a list off on her fingers. ‘You’ve got to have a limousine you’ve travelled in before. Drivers you happen to fancy. Private planes instead of scheduled flights. Then refusing to stay in the best hotel in New York because you wanted to be alone, and that meant a private apartment at vast cost…’ She glared. ‘I’ve got news for you, Jemima. You’re not Greta Garbo. Wake up and smell the coffee.’

Jemima looked stunned.

Abby and Molly looked at each other, relieved. At least they had got through this time.

‘Drivers I happen to fancy?’ said Jemima, outraged.

Or not. Abby dropped her head in her hands.

Molly’s eyes narrowed to slits. ‘Fine. Don’t take our advice. See where you end up.’

Jemima said coolly, ‘I pay your company a whole lot of money to run my PR and analyse the results. I didn’t take you on as a life coach.’

Molly put down her margarita so hard that some of it slopped onto the highly polished table. Abby mopped at it with one of the paper cocktail napkins. Neither Jemima nor Molly took any notice.

‘Okay, I’ll tell you the truth—since nobody else will,’ said Molly with heat. ‘Your agent is too scared you’ll dump her, like you did the one before her. And your sister treats you with kid gloves. God knows why.’

Jemima’s famously melting golden-brown eyes flickered.

‘When Belinda went looking for their new face, they told everyone they wanted someone the professional girl about town could relate to. No more elegant skeletons. No more untouchable celebrities. They wanted a girl who had a family and friends and did normal things. I put some cuttings in your folder,’ she added with bite.

‘Thank you.’ No one could describe Jemima’s eyes as melting at the moment. They glittered.

‘I thought it would help to remind you. When you got the job, you fulfilled the job description. Now you don’t. I’m just betting the people at Belinda are beginning to notice.’

Did she know that Madame was sitting in the Dorchester like a black widow, waiting to crunch her bones?

Jemima’s jaw was rigid. But she said nothing.

‘Oh, please yourself,’ said Molly in disgust.

Her eyes met Abby’s. The message was clear, even to Jemima: I give up! She stood up. ‘Abby, you’d better finish up here. I’ve got real work to do back in the office.’

She stamped off.

Left behind, Abby said apologetically, ‘Molly gets very passionate about her work.’

Jemima swallowed. ‘Doesn’t she just?’ But her light tone sounded strained.

Just for a moment Abby thought the beautiful mask might crack. Just for a moment it seemed as if Jemima would come off her pedestal. Abby didn’t care what she did—laugh, cry, swear at Molly, throw things…. Just as long as she stopped looking poised and bored and totally, totally indifferent.

But she didn’t.

Instead she leaned back in her deep chair, pinned on the famous smile and drawled, ‘So, tell me about my family. The last time I spoke to Izzy she said they couldn’t finalise the date until Dominic had sorted out his training schedule.’

Abby gave up too.

Over lunch Jemima was barbed and witty, and as defensive as a killer crab. She was charming to the waiters, indifferent to the covert stares of several of their fellow diners. But when one of them got up and came over to their table she tensed visibly, Abby saw.

He turned out to be a lively barrister, with a copy of Elegance Magazine in his briefcase and a niece who wanted to be a model. Jemima gave him the slow up-and-under smile that had made her famous, signed the cover of the magazine as he asked, and told him to tell his niece to finish her exams before she tried out for any of the respectable model agencies. Delighted, he gave her his business card and went back to his table.

‘Someone who doesn’t think you’re a spoiled brat?’ asked Abby shrewdly.

Jemima was cool. ‘Yup.’ She tore his card into tiny pieces and dropped them onto the pristine tablecloth. Abby saw that her fingers were shaking.

Suddenly Abby was concerned. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Of course.’ But the golden eyes looked blind, almost as if she were afraid.

Abby leaned forward. ‘Are you sure? You looked like a ghost when he came over.’

The beautiful shoulders gave that arrogant shrug. ‘I—thought he might be someone I knew.’

‘But he wasn’t?’

The blind look went out of Jemima’s eyes. For a moment she looked rueful, almost the friendly girl Belinda Cosmetics had thought they were getting for their campaign.

‘No, he was a complete stranger.’ She added almost under her breath, ‘Thank God.’

More and more worried, Abby said, ‘Jemima, what’s wrong? Have you been overdoing it again?’

She knew that Jemima had worked herself into exhaustion six months ago. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Jemima diving out of sight for a couple of weeks and Izzy stepping into her shoes Izzy and Dom would never have met.

Jemima looked away, her face expressionless.

‘I wish Izzy was around,’ said Abby worriedly. Izzy was with Dom in Norway, and wouldn’t be back for two weeks. But at least she had got a reaction at last. Jemima bristled.

‘I don’t need my big sister to take care of me. I can look after myself. As Molly has just been pointing out, I only have to pick up the phone and somebody jumps. It’s great.’

Abby sank back in her seat, disapproving and trying to hide it.

She moved the subject firmly away from the professional. Fortunately they had family to get them through the next course.

They agreed that it was a bore that Izzy and Dom wouldn’t confirm the date for their wedding. Yes, it was great to see how happy they were.

And then Abby snapped her fingers, relaxing again. ‘That reminds me. I’ve got the Christmas photographs to show you.’

She fished in her bag and brought out an untidy handful. She sorted through them rapidly, extracted a couple, then handed the rest across with a reminiscent smile.

‘I’ll get you copies of anything you want.’

Jemima did not figure in any of the cheerful pictures. She had managed Christmas Day with the family, but she had been off on a big shoot in the Seychelles on Boxing Day. She flipped through them with the speed of one who spent much of her professional life looking at sheets of photographs.

‘All matching pairs,’ she said.

‘What?’

Jemima fanned out four and turned them to face Abby. There was Abby herself, dancing with her tall, elegant husband, Izzy and Dom, tumbling on the floor under the Christmas tree and laughing madly, and Jemima’s cousin Pepper leaning dreamily against her Steven’s shoulder.

‘Even my parents are holding hands.’ Jemima pointed at the fourth.

They were too.

‘I see what you mean,’ admitted Abby.

‘Just as well I’d moved on. I would have unbalanced the party.’

‘Oh, come on. You’d have been the star.’

Jemima said in an odd voice, ‘Same thing. Stars don’t come in matching pairs.’

Abby looked up, instantly alert. ‘Still no man in your life, then?’

There was the tiniest pause.

Then, ‘Not one I’d take home to Mother.’

The irony was very nicely done. It said, You and I are women of the world; we know that I’m beautiful and sophisticated and my relationships are very, very modern. Much too modern for my hand-holding parents to get their heads around.

But Abby was not quite convinced. ‘Are you telling me you’re one for the wild men?’ she said doubtfully.

Jemima narrowed her eyes at her. ‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘Then what?’

Jemima hesitated. At last she said, ‘Put it this way—I’m not looking for a man to follow me round the world.’

‘Ah. Yes, I see. It’s not easy keeping a relationship on the rails when your work makes you travel,’ allowed Abby. Her husband had business ventures in four continents. Even so, he did not travel as much as a top international model. She looked at Jemima curiously. ‘Is it lonely?’

Jemima snorted. ‘Who has time to get lonely?’ It seemed to burst out of her. ‘So far this year I’ve done Madrid, Milan, Barcelona, Paris, London. Now I’m off to New York and Milan again. Then back to New York.’

It sounded grim to Abby. ‘You could still be lonely,’ she pointed out. ‘Do you ever want to do something else with your life?’

But Jemima was flicking through the pictures again and did not seem to hear.

‘Hello—what’s this one? Been away?’

Diverted, Abby held out her hand for the photograph. Unlike the others, it was a commercial postcard: a standard view of tropical palms with wild surf beyond. She turned it over and smiled as she read the message on the back.

‘Oh, that. It’s just a postcard from a friend.’ She gave it back. ‘He stays out of England, but every so often he sends me a postcard to show me what I’m missing.’ Her smile was warmly reminiscent. ‘Those palm trees look good on a wet Friday in London, don’t they?’

Jemima looked at those foaming waves and shook her head. ‘Bit energetic for me,’ she said dryly, and turned the card over to look at the legend. ‘“Pentecost Island”,’ she read. ‘Where’s that? South Seas?’

Abby shook her head. ‘Who knows? Could be. He gets around.’

‘He?’ teased Jemima. In the square left for messages on the back of the postcard someone had written ‘Time you tried the white horses!’ and signed it with an arrogant black N. ‘Should Emilio be worried?’

Abby grinned suddenly. ‘Not for a moment. He’s known me since I had spots and braces on my teeth. If there’s one man in the world for whom I have no mystery it’s him.’

Jemima pulled a face. ‘Sounds dull.’

Abby laughed aloud. ‘He’s a professional gambler and gorgeous with it. Whatever else he is, dull he isn’t.’

Jemima shuffled all the photographs together neatly and gave them back to her.

‘So you won’t be taking off to Pentecost Island for a dashing weekend with an old flame?’

Abby was serene. ‘Not a chance. I’ve never even heard of it before.’

‘Nor me. Must be pretty remote.’

‘Not that remote,’ said Abby dryly. ‘If he’s there, it must have a casino.’ She put the photographs in her bag and signalled for the bill. ‘Where are you going now? Can I give you a lift?’

‘The Dorchester.’

‘Nice,’ said Abby, her eyes dancing.

Jemima grinned suddenly. ‘Not so nice. I’m in for a grilling from Madame.’

Abby’s expression changed instantly. She shuddered.

‘Now, that woman scares me. I’m so glad we work for you, not Belinda.’

Jemima shrugged again. ‘She doesn’t scare me.’

‘You’re really brave, aren’t you?’

‘Hell, why? She’s my employer, not the Emperor Nero.’

‘But she can be so nasty. And she always looks so—immaculate.’

‘So do I,’ said Jemima coolly. ‘And I can walk away. She can’t. It’s her company.’

Abby was admiring. But still she shook her head. ‘Doesn’t she press your buttons at all?’

‘Not a one,’ said Jemima, her eyes glittering. ‘There are things worth getting worked up about. Madame Belinda isn’t one of them.’

If she had been at the Dorchester an hour later Abby would have seen that that was not the whole truth. Jemima was getting worked up, all right. But not with fear. With rage.

Jemima shook back her famous red hair as she felt the fury rise. It felt glorious. It had taken a long time. Too long. But now she was angry.

She stood up and glared at Madame, the President of Belinda Cosmetics.

‘Are you telling me you flew the Atlantic and made me find a space in the busiest week in the year to complain that I haven’t got a boyfriend?’

The Vice-President, seated at Madame’s right hand at the impressive boardroom table, blenched.

Madame President was unmoved. ‘Sit down, Jemima.’

But Jemima was on a roll. ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’

Madame President’s eyes held hers. They had about as much expression as a lizard’s. They clearly scared the hell out of the Vice-President.

‘The woman who pays your considerable bills.’

The Vice-President was theoretically tall, dark and handsome—and very sophisticated. Suave Silvio, they called him on the circuit. Jemima had been on a couple of ultra-cool dates with him, and she knew that his advance publicity was fully deserved.

But now he gulped audibly. Man or mouse? No contest, thought Jemima. She ignored him.

‘You don’t own me,’ she told Madame. ‘I have other contracts.’

Jemima looked straight into Madame’s lizard eyes, like a duellist facing the enemy.

There was a long pause. Neither blinked.

‘And how long will you keep them if I tell the world I sacked you?’ asked Madame icily.

Jemima did not let herself remember that she’d already thought of that. She was too intent on the battle.

‘And that means you can order me to take a boyfriend?’ She was scornful. ‘I don’t think so.’

Madame President stood up. It was scary. She was five foot nothing of concentrated power and purpose. She slapped her hands down on the table in front of her and leaned forward. Her voice went up to a roar, astonishing for her size. ‘You will do what I say!’

It was intimidating. It was meant to be.

But Jemima was in full duellist mode by now. She stood her ground. ‘I joined an advertising campaign. Not a harem.’

Suave Silvio moaned.

It reminded her. ‘Did Silvio date me on orders?’

Madame made a dismissive gesture.

‘He did,’ said Jemima on a note of discovery. She was so furious she had gone utterly calm. ‘And I suppose it was you who put poor old Francis Hale-Smith up to asking me out, wasn’t it? I told him to get lost, by the way.’

Madame went puce. ‘You are the face of Belinda. If I say you have a boyfriend, you will have a boyfriend!’

‘Nope.’

‘I pay you!’ yelled Madame.

It was the last straw. ‘Then I quit,’ said Jemima, very, very quietly.

Their eyes locked for electric seconds.

This time Madame President blinked.

Then she straightened and sat down again. The red subsided from her exquisitely made-up cheeks.

‘Coffee, I think,’ she said, quite as if nothing had happened. ‘Silvio, tell them to bring coffee at once.’

The Vice-President leaped to his feet, looking relieved. ‘Yes, Madame.’ He rushed to a phone in the corner and spoke into it urgently.

What was the old bat up to now? thought Jemima, deeply suspicious. ‘Not for me,’ she said coldly. ‘I just quit.’

Madame waved a hand so heavily encrusted with rings it could have set several small fires if the sun had been shining. Only this was London in February, and the sky was solid grey cloud. Even with lavish windows, the penthouse was safe.

‘Good. Good.’ She beamed at Jemima, nodding as approvingly as if a promising pupil had just made a breakthrough. ‘Sit. Take a coffee with me. We will talk about this.’

She’s going mad, thought Jemima. Either that or I am.

As much to steady herself as anything, she said levelly, ‘When I signed up to be the face of Belinda I agreed to do four photo shoots a year and various PR jobs. I’ve kept my side of the bargain.’

Madame President snorted loudly.

With a supreme effort of will, Jemima bit back the pithy response that sprang to mind.

When Elegance Magazine had first discovered Jemima Dare, one besotted staff columnist had described her as having ‘gut-wrenching sensuality allied to Titania’s ethereal provocation’. He would not have recognised her at the moment, golden-brown eyes narrowed and spitting mad. But then that had been four years ago. In the interim she had done a lot of growing up—not all of it pleasant.

Madame President was a new experience. But Jemima was a fast learner. And one of the things she had learned was that in confrontations you had to take control.

Right. Give the old bat something to worry about. ‘Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t walk out of here right now,’ she said.

Silvio nearly dropped the phone. Even Madame President looked taken aback for a moment. Then she gave another of those disconcertingly approving nods.

‘Because you and I can do business together,’ she said simply.

Jemima’s eyes skimmed the worried Silvio. ‘Not if you were thinking of picking my boyfriends,’ she said dryly. ‘We don’t seem to have the same taste in men.’

Madame’s eyes gleamed. ‘Silvio, get out,’ she said without looking at him.

He went.

Madame was talking before the door closed behind him. ‘Okay. Cards on the table. We have a problem.’

Jemima raised perfect eyebrows.

‘Oh, sit down,’ said Madame irritably. ‘It is like talking to a lamp post. Why are models so damned tall these days? When I was a girl in Paris, they were human-sized.’

In spite of herself, Jemima gave a choke of laughter. And sat.

‘That’s better.’

Madame leaned forward and propped her chin on her steepled fingers. The rings glittered but Jemima hardly noticed. The eyes were not a lizard’s any more. They were dark and expressive—and shrewd.

‘The press…’

‘Have decided I’m a spoiled brat,’ supplied Jemima. ‘I’ve just had lunch with my PR advisers. They’ve given me the rundown.’

Madame shook her head. ‘They’re wrong. The press enjoys spoiled brats. Our problem is that they are forgetting you.’

She picked up a handful of magazines and flung them across the coffee table. Jemima saw European titles mixed with North American celebrity titles.

‘Take a look,’ said Madame in a hard, level voice. ‘Show me your name. They’ve got film stars, baseball stars. Even some damned aristocrat who’s been missing for fifteen years. How far off today’s news is that? But no Jemima Dare. And, more important, no face of Belinda.’

Jemima frowned. But she was fair. She went through the magazines rapidly. Madame was right.

Tom and Sandy: will they split? Eugenio takes us into his lovely Florida home. Where is the Duke? The hunt is on…

She pushed the magazines away. ‘Okay. No Belinda. No me. I’ll give you that. So?’

‘Time to do something about it.’

Jemima’s eyes narrowed. ‘This is the One Last Chance chat, isn’t it?’ she said suddenly.

Madame President’s eyes flickered. ‘Yes,’ she said baldly. ‘Have you had lots of them?’

Jemima laughed. ‘My cousin Pepper is an entrepreneur. We share an apartment. I listen to her work problems,’ she said coolly. ‘I know the signs.’

Madame looked annoyed. ‘Then deal with it.’

Jemima smiled. ‘I’d say there was an unless coming. You’ll cancel my contract unless I—what? Dye my hair? Write a celebrity novel? Sing? What?’

Madame laughed unexpectedly. It sounded rusty. ‘I like you, Jemima. You’re gutsy.’

I need to be, with sharks like you signing my pay cheque.

She did not say it, of course. She gave her a demure smile. ‘Thank you. So spit it out. What do you want me to do? Short of dating Francis, that is.’

Madame was temporarily side-tracked. ‘Why not Francis? He’s very talented. He’ll go far.’

Jemima leaned back and crossed her legs. ‘And he’s a complete prune. He asked me out over the head of another girl while I was dressed in nothing but a pair of knickers and a lot of sticky tape.’

Madame was startled enough to allow herself to be sidetracked again. ‘Sticky tape?’

‘He’s into deep, deep plunge this collection.’

They exchanged a look of total understanding. In her time Madame President had been a model too. She nodded.

‘Ah.’

‘What’s more,’ said Jemima, watching Madame from under her lashes, ‘when I said I’d take a rain-check he looked as if he’d been let out of prison.’

There was a small silence. Madame’s lips tightened.

‘How on earth did you sign him up?’ Jemima was genuinely curious.

Madame looked like a lizard about to spit. But she was a good tactician. After a brief struggle with herself, she said curtly, ‘Offered him a joint promotion next Christmas.’

‘Well, he tried,’ said Jemima fairly. ‘So, want to tell me why?’

Madame examined her rings absorbedly. ‘When we were looking for the new face of Belinda, we had a very specific brief in mind,’ she said at last slowly. ‘A woman of today—a woman who made her own decisions, a woman with a career, sure, but a woman to whom other things were important too—friends, things of the mind, love, children.’

Jemima regarded her with an unblinking gaze. Then, ‘If you want me to have a baby, forget it.’ Her voice was hard. ‘That’s not a decision I’d take because a cosmetic company told me to. Or any other employer, for that matter.’

To her surprise, Madame looked delighted. Triumphant even. ‘Exactly. That’s the tone I want.’

Jemima flung up her hands. ‘I give up.’

‘Look,’ said Madame, suddenly a lot less dramatic, ‘you were my personal choice for the face of Belinda. I liked the way you presented yourself. You didn’t crave the celebrity circuit. You didn’t worry that laughing too much would crack your make-up. You thought about things and you weren’t afraid to have an opinion. I liked that.’

Jemima was taken aback. ‘Thank you.’

‘Silvio said you weren’t glamorous enough.’

Weasel, thought Jemima. That isn’t what he said to me when he was wining and dining me. Aloud, she said, ‘Really?’

‘But I said that it didn’t matter. This is the twenty-first century, I said. It is time for a change. She lives with her sister and her cousin like a regular person. Besides, they are all three go-getters.’

Jemima grinned. ‘Oh, yes, we’re that all right.’ She thought of Pepper the businesswoman and Izzy the adventure freak. ‘By the bucketful.’

Madame grinned back. She was very charming when she grinned, thought Jemima. For a shark.

‘So I thought—there’s my twenty-first-century woman. Gorgeous redhead who doesn’t spend her life worrying about the size of her bum. Girl with a life. And a future.’

Jemima was touched. ‘Thank you,’ she said again.

‘So how did all go so wrong? What happened to that lovely girl with her feet on the ground?’

Jemima winced.

There was a brief knock and the Vice-President appeared at the door, ushering in a waiter with a huge tray. The waiter poured coffee and glasses of mineral water and left. The Vice-President hovered. Madame waved him to sit. He sank into an armchair with a distinct sigh of relief.

Frowning, she said, ‘When that stupid manager started turning you into a professional partygoer, I told Silvio, “Call him up. Tell him to back off.” Didn’t I, Silvio?’

He nodded enthusiastically. ‘You did, Madame.’

‘But then you fired him. And I thought, Great. The girl has good instincts. We’re back on track.’

Jemima had gone rigid. ‘I didn’t fire Basil.’

Madame ignored that. ‘Only now you don’t go out at all.’

‘I didn’t fire Basil.’

Jemima was starting to shiver, she realised. To hide it, she looked around for her shoulder-bag and fussed through it.

Madame seemed disappointed. ‘That’s not what I heard.’

The shivers down her spine were turning into a positive cascade. ‘I left his management by mutual agreement.’

Madame looked sceptical.

‘It was.’

Well, eventually. When she had threatened to expose the things he’d done—the pills to keep her thin, the break from her family to keep her ‘focused’, as he’d called it. Oh, yes, he’d been glad enough to give back her contract when she’d faced him with all of that. Only now he was having second thoughts, and…

If she wasn’t careful, she was going to start shaking again.

With another of her abrupt changes of mood Madame lost interest. ‘It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you have no life. You don’t date. You don’t go out anywhere unless it’s an assignment.’

Jemima was still shaky. ‘I work. I don’t have time to go out.’

‘Make time.’

‘What?’

Madame said with finality, ‘Go back to being a regular person. You don’t have to disappear and come back a duke. You don’t even have to date a designer if you don’t want to. But date someone.’

‘I—’

‘I’m cancelling the shoot in New York. Take a break. Go meet some guys, like other girls. I want to see you living a life like our customers lead. And I want to see the press stories to prove it.’

She stood up. The interview was clearly over.

Jemima stopped shivering. She was not afraid of Madame.

She tipped her head back. On this dull grey afternoon the penthouse was lit by warm table-lamps. In their light the wonderful red hair rippled like fire, like wine. And Jemima knew it. She knew, too, that the woman who had personally chosen her as the face of Belinda would not want to admit she had been wrong.

She said, quite gently, ‘Or?’

Madame recognised a challenge when she saw it. She might like Jemima personally. But she couldn’t afford to let a challenge go unanswered. Her jaw hardened.

‘We’re already into planning the Christmas campaign. I won’t pull you off that. But it’s your last unless you—’

‘Get a boyfriend,’ supplied Jemima. Her temper went back onto a slow burn. She smiled pleasantly at the shark. ‘I’m almost certain that’s illegal.’

Madame did not care about piffling legalities. She snorted. ‘Unless you get a life.’

‘And if I don’t?’

The eyes were blank and lizard-like again. ‘You’re off the team.’

Jemima flipped off the sofa. ‘Cast your mind back,’ she said sweetly. ‘Like I said, I quit.’

She steamed out before they could answer.

The commissionaire summoned a taxi for her. She sank into the big seat and called the agency.

‘Belinda and I just fired each other,’ she said curtly.

She rang off to squawks of horror.

And then she did what she had been putting off all day. She checked her text messages.

Her fingers shook a little as she pressed the buttons. Basil had stopped leaving messages on her voicemail these days. But he texted a lot. Mostly she managed to zap them unread. But today she saw one she had thought was from her limousine service.

As soon as she saw it was not, she killed it. But not soon enough.

The message was the same as always. The words changed. But the theme was constant.

U R MYN.

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