Читать книгу The Billionaire Takes a Bride - Liz Fielding - Страница 8

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…