FOR the first twenty minutes of the phone call Lucy's
total contribution consisted of a series of admiring
grunts and the occasionally awed "Reallyโฆ!"
Her sister Annie was in love, which Lucy knew meant you
had to make the sort of allowances you would for anyone
suffering from temporary insanity. No problem, Lucy could
do that, but there were limits to her endurance and even
had she been a card-carrying member of the hopeless-
romantic society this conversation might have put her off
her lunch.
Lucy Foster wasn't a hopeless romantic, and she had
resorted to biting her tongue to stop herself blurting out
something caustic that would most likely alienate her big
sister forever.
She'd never met Connor Fitzgerald, but she already hated
the sound of his name.
Like Annie, Lucy had once imagined there was some special
man out there for her, she had even thought that she had
found him! A lot more than two years separated the person
who was having to bite back cynical retorts from the
pathetically trusting creature she had been back then.
Nowadays Lucy worked on the assumption that men were for
the most part shallow creatures not to be trusted with a
grocery list let alone a girl's heart. This philosophy
served her pretty wellโฆtwo years and no emotional
entanglements and all the angst that inevitably
accompanied them.
Though it had a lot of bad press, celibacy had a lot to
recommend it.
It would clearly have been useless at the moment to
attempt to sell this successful formula to her sister;
human nature being what it was, some things you just had
to learn the hard way, Lucy admitted to herself
regretfully. No, she'd just have to be there to pick up
the pieces when the man of the moment, this Connor, broke
poor Annie's heart. Even if the man sounded like a total
pain.
As far as Lucy was concerned it was not so much of a case
of if but when.
It wasn't as if she had a closed mind on the subject โ she
was prepared to concede there might be some rare
exceptions to her grocery-list rule โ but the chances of
Annie striking lucky seemed pretty remote to her.
It was some relief when Annie, having presumably used up
her daily quota of clichรฉs, finally stopped waxing lyrical
about the length of Connor's eyelashes, his incredible
sense of humour and his general all-round superiority to
every other man that had ever been born, and got on to the
actual reason for her call.
"I just called to say knock them dead, Luce." 'I'll do my
best," Lucy promised. "So, are you nervous?" 'I wouldn't
say that." She also wouldn't say she was exactly wildly
confident either, in fact there had been several occasions
during the past few days when she regretted letting her
sister wangle her an interview for a job she was patently
unqualified for. "Well, actually, yes, I think I am
slightly nervousโฆ"
Running her tongue across her dry lips, she encountered
the unexpected subtle taste of the expensive lipstick that
had tinged her lips a fashionable shade of red โ or so
she'd been told by Marcus.
Lucy, in her total ignorance of this great man's fame, had
created a minor furore in the salon frequented by numerous
celebrities when she had asked him his surname. Well, his
single name might be synonymous with excellence in the
world of hairstyling and fashion but Lucy still felt
doubtful about accepting style tips from a man the wrong
side of forty who wore skin-tight black leather from head
to toe!
"Well, adrenaline is good." Lucy wondered if she was the
only one to find Annie's inexhaustible supply of optimism
irritating. "Even if it reduces me to a gibbering wreck?"
Lucy heard her sister give a sigh of exasperation. "You
remember that positive attitude we discussed?"
"I'm positiveโฆhonestly, I'm oozing confidence. I'll dazzle
the interview panel with my wit, good looks and the sheer
force of my stunning personalityโฆ" Which will make them
overlook the fact a degree in modern history and working
my way around Europe on a shoestring hardly qualifies me
for a position as a PA in advertising.
"Now, that is just the sort of remark you want to
avoid." 'I was joking?" 'It's safer to assume that the
people interviewing you don't have a sense of humour, dry
or otherwise," her sister advised. "I'm beginning to think
you're not taking this seriously. You do want a proper
job?" Annie added, a note of critical doubt entering her
voice.
"Proper?" Lucy yelped indignantly. "What do you think I've
been doing up until now?"
"Let me see, where shall I start? How about putting your
life on hold for three years to act as an unpaid
researcher for your boyfriend who then dumps you and takes
the credit for all your work?" Lucy winced. That hadn't
been her finest hour but she was older and wiser
now. "Or," Annie continued warming to her theme, "do you
mean picking grapes in Burgundy? Or maybe looking after
rich people's spoilt brats at Lucerne, and then there was
the waitressing; now, that was a great career moveโฆ"
Lucy pulled a face down the receiver. "They were lovely
kids, and I got to see Europe."
"I know, you saw the bits the tourists never see; call me
superficial, love, but I like my authentic experience to
involve authentic five-star hotels. And before you get all
sniffy and superior think onโฆis it so bad of me wanting to
see my little sister doing a decent job with some sort of
prospects? It's such a waste โ you were always the clever
oneโฆ"
Too clever, Rupert had said when he had broken the news he
had found a less clever and much prettier replacement.
Lucy blinked away the painful memory.
"But you were the one with focus and drive." It worried
her slightly that the only thing her sister seemed driven
to do at the moment was worship Connor
Fitzgerald. "Listen, I do appreciate what you're trying to
do."
"Good; so tell me, what are you wearing โ the cream?" 'I
don't have your cleavage to carry it off." 'No, I don't
suppose you do," conceded the owner of a very superior
cleavage.
"I'm wearing your black suit." With typical generosity her
sister had given Lucy the pick of her extensive wardrobe
and the use of her flat for the duration of her stay in
the capital.
"Well, I suppose anything's an improvement on your own
clothes," conceded Annie, who frequently despaired of
getting her sister out of jeans. "You did keep that
appointment with Marcus?"
"I hardly recognise myself," Lucy replied, lifting her
eyes to the unfamiliar reflection in the mirror. "If this
is the natural look I dread to think what an unnatural one
would look like!"
To achieve natural all minor trace of her freckles had
been ruthlessly hidden behind several layers of pale matt
foundation. In addition her choppily cut shoulder-length
blonde hair been slicked back into a smooth chignon and
her almond-shaped eyes dramatically outlined with dark
liner that gave her an air of mystery.
"Looking as though you're not wearing any make-up takes
time."
"You're telling me, if I wanted to do this every day I'd
have to get up at four a.m."
"I thought you were a morning person." 'But I'm not an
exfoliating, moisturising and eyebrow-plucking person."
Annie laughed at the piteous complaint. "You just need
practice. I told Marcus to give you the full works โ hair,
make-up, nailsโฆnot that you have anyโฆ"
"I do now," Lucy replied with a dubious glance at the red
talons where her short, unpolished nails had been
earlier. "And he gave me a doggy bag to take home with a
bewildering selection of goodies."
"A present from me for your new job." 'I don't have the
job yetโฆ" Lucy felt impelled to remind her sister. She
couldn't rid herself of the feeling she was going to be an
awful disappointment.
"Oh, take it from me, you'll walk it. Now, are you feeding
the cats? And you're not over-watering my plants? Oh, and
if Derek from upstairs offers you a coffee don't say yesโฆ
he likes to pretend he's single when his wife goes to
visit her mother."
"The cats are fine, your plants are fine and I can promise
I'll resist any of Derek's offers of coffee โ especially
if he is the one with the sloping shoulders, over-gelled
hair and loud voiceโฆor, for that matter even if he's not.
Listen, Annie, there's someone at the door โ I've got to
goโฆ"
"All right, but I'll ring later and you can tell me how
you got on."
"I will."
It wasn't until Lucy had replaced the receiver that she
remembered she had forgotten to ask for a contact number
in case anything came up. Annie had mentioned the romantic
ambience of the hotel but not the name โ so all Lucy knew
was that she was staying somewhere in the Lake District
that had four-poster beds.
The door finally opened and Finn Fitzgerald saw that his
worst fears had been more than realized. She was
everything he'd been hoping not to find.
It seemed that when it came to a certain sort of blonde
his kid brother was incapable of learning from his
mistakes, even ones as emotionally and financially painful
as two failed marriages โ quite some record when you
considered Con was still six months short of his thirtieth
birthday!
Not only had his dismal experiences not put the
romantically inclined Connor off the institute of
marriage, but he was also still falling for the wrong sort
of woman.
Not long out of college, Con had married Mia, a silvery
ash-blonde eight years his senior with legs that went on
forever. After twelve months Mia had left him for the job
as head designer for a prestigious French fashion house
without a backward glance.
Four years later Jasmine had come along. Another ash-
blonde, Jasmine had been almost as fanatical about keeping
her cellulite at bay as she had been at getting to the top
and staying there even if it involved sleeping with the
odd influential person on the way there. Which had proved
problematic when her loving husband had come home to find
her in bed with one, her boss of the moment.
Enough to put any sane man off marriage โ but not his
insanely optimistic brother!
This one certainly had everything his brother went for โ
long, shapely legs, a great body, cut-glass features and
that inevitable untouchable aura. Finn didn't doubt for a
moment she was as ruthless and self-centred as the
previous two Mrs Fitzgeralds.
He sometimes wondered if Con's desire to thaw the ice and
reveal the warm, vibrant woman beneath โ it hadn't sunk in
yet that you couldn't discover something that wasn't there
to begin with! โ went beyond the challenge and the legs?
A firm believer that a man made his own destiny and that
you took responsibility for your own actions, Finn was
normally highly resistant to the popular modern tendency
to blame your character defects on a traumatic childhood
incident. But when he considered his brother's history he
couldn't help but wonder if there wasn't something in it.
Their parents had split up when he'd been ten and Con two
years younger. The responsible adults had come up with the
insane idea of dividing up the children along with the
property, furniture and record collection.
He'd ended up with their mother, a tall blondeโฆ
coincidence? You didn't have to be Freud to see there was
a theme hereโฆa young kid felt rejected by his mother and
in adult life tried to gain the love of women who bore
more than a passing resemblance to herโฆself-centredโฆ
selfishโฆ shallowโฆ
He loved his mother dearly but he wasn't blind to the
deficiencies in her character.
"Can I help you?" Lucy gave a smile, not her usual wide,
warm smile, the one that lit up her face and wrinkled her
eyes at the corners and would, according to Annie, lead to
premature crow's feet, but a stiff little twitch of the
lips.
It made her look worried and she was โ worried that if she
didn't leave soon she'd be late for her interview. Worried
that when she got there she'd make a total fool of herself
and worried that the innumerable layers that constituted
her natural-looking make-up would develop irrep-arable
cracks if she allowed herself the full range of facial
expressions. The fear she would fall off the three-inch
heels she hadn't quite got the hang of yet at a crucial
moment was more a certainty than a worry. The highest heel
Lucy wore as a rule was on her trainers.
The man who had been leaning with his hand pressed to the
doorbell straightened upright. Lucy was forced to tilt her
head back to make eye contact โ she blinked as she
encountered a pair of the bluest eyes she had ever seen.
The bewildering hostility she was seeing in those ceru-
lean depths twitched her freshly tweaked eyebrows into a
straight line โ this was not the reaction her expensive
make-over was supposed to have on the opposite sex.
Not that Lucy could imagine ever thinking it desirable to
excite the admiration of a man like the one before her,
who was everything she instinctively distrusted and
disliked in a man.
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