Mission: the pitter-patter of tiny feet

Amanda Fleming is young, super-successful… and has a biological clock that couldn’t be ticking louder if it tried. Meeting gorgeous blue-eyed Daniel Redford just sends it into total overdrive! With his charm and movie-star good looks, if she was looking for dad-material, he’d be her number one choice!

It was only a fun daydream, but then Daniel asks her out. Getting to know the man behind the smile is an irresistibly delicious temptation, but it turns out single dad Daniel has family responsibilities of his own already. So how will he react when Amanda must tell him he’s going to be a dad again…?

The Baby Plan

Liz Fielding

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Blurb

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

‘A BABY? You’ve decided to have a baby?’ Amanda Garland Fleming said nothing, merely waited for her Business Manager to retrieve her chin from the office floor. ‘Excuse me?’ Beth’s laugh was definitely of the ‘hold on—you’re kidding me’ variety. ‘Have I missed something here? Something basic. Like a husband? Or a live-in partner? I didn’t even know you were seeing someone. Not that seriously, anyway.’ She glanced at the calendar. ‘It’s not April Fool’s day, is it?’

Straight to the point. No messing. That was Beth.

Since the early autumn sunshine slanting through the window suggested that the question was purely rhetorical, Amanda ignored it. ‘Could you ask Jane to pop out and pick up these books for me, when she has a moment?’

Beth’s eyebrows rose sharply as she skimmed the list that contained every childcare book from Dr Spock to Penelope Leach. ‘A little light … er … bedtime reading?’

‘Research. I like to have a thorough grasp of the subject.’

‘Then let’s hope a ‘‘thorough grasp of the subject’’ is sufficient to bring you to your senses. You might even notice the flaw in your plan. Making a baby takes two, darling; not even the legendary organisational talent of Amanda Garland can manage that particular miracle single-handed.’

‘On the contrary. The wonders of science ensure that a man—at least, the kind of man that requires nurturing, feeding and an endless supply of clean shirts—is now redundant.’

Beth’s eyes sparked with mischief. ‘Fun, though.’

Amanda knew better than to be drawn along that path. ‘The books,’ she repeated. ‘And some folic acid.’

‘Folic acid?’

‘Vital for the healthy development of the neural tube. My doctor advised starting to take it before I get pregnant.’

‘You’ve talked to your doctor about this? What did she say?’

‘She said, ‘‘Start taking folic acid.’’’

Beth waited a moment, clearly hoping that she was going to laugh, say, just kidding. When it didn’t happen she said, ‘This isn’t a joke is it? You’re going to have a baby?’

Amanda had been in total control of her life since she was eighteen years old and had never once doubted a decision taken or looked back with regret. Now, a successful businesswoman on the cusp of her thirtieth year, she had taken stock of her life, considered where she wanted to be when the big four zero beckoned. She had already decided on changes to her business, on expansion into new areas, taking the Garland name out of the office and into the home. But that hadn’t been enough.

‘Well, it’s still in the planning stage—’

‘Planning stage!’

It was Amanda’s turn to smile. ‘You’ve heard of family planning, haven’t you?’ It was all going to be very simple. She wanted a child of her own, and with her thirtieth birthday looming on the horizon and her biological clock ticking with increasing urgency it was time to do what she was particularly good at. Make a plan, carry it through and achieve her goal. She had never needed a man to hold her hand before, and the advancement of science ensured that she could manage without one now.

Beth’s expression, however, suggested that she didn’t see it that way. ‘You’re talking about having a baby as if it’s just another business deal. Have you any idea what motherhood will do to your life?’

‘Well, yes. That’s why I’m planning ahead. I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the problem of getting the right nanny.’

‘Nanny?’ Beth’s voice rose a notch.

‘Have you any idea how big the demand is? My sister-in-law’s baby isn’t due until the end of January, but Jilly has already started interviewing. It seems to me that it’s an area crying out for the Garland touch.’

Beth grabbed the change of subject with both hands and ran with it. ‘We have more work than we can handle just keeping up with the demand for our secretaries.’ She paused. Amanda said nothing. ‘Domestics, maybe,’ she conceded, doubtfully. ‘We’d need more staff, bigger offices, of course—’

‘The ground-floor offices are becoming vacant shortly. They will be perfect.’

Beth opened her mouth, closed it again, then said, ‘It’s a specialised market, Amanda.’

The intercom buzzed from Reception. ‘The driver wants to know how much longer he’s going to have to wait, Miss Garland. The traffic warden is getting restive.’

‘I’m coming now,’ she said, rising to her feet, gathering her document case and her laptop.

‘Amanda! You can’t just leave …’

‘We’ll talk on Monday. I only mentioned it now because I want you to do a couple of things for me. Walk me down to the street.’ She headed for the door. ‘First, I want you to contact the Department of Employment and find out what, if any, regulations there are relating to the employment of nannies. And find out what you can about training, qualifications, that sort of thing.’

‘And the second thing?’

Amanda pulled open the heavy glass street door. ‘Give my doctor’s office a call and ask her receptionist to make an appointment with the clinic for me.’

Daniel Redford, leaning against the bulk of the Mercedes, checked his watch impatiently and glanced up at the first-floor offices of the Garland Secretarial Agency. So much for the fabulous Garland Girls. They were reputed to be the classiest, best-qualified temps in town, but punctuality clearly wasn’t one of their virtues.

‘You going to be there much longer?’ The traffic warden had already passed him once. Before he could answer, the door to the agency opened and his passenger emerged, all apologies.

‘I’m so sorry to keep you waiting.’ Daniel had a swift impression of gloss. Sleek, dark hair, a gleaming mouth, a pair of silvery grey eyes that included the traffic warden in a sunburst smile that would have won his dilatory passenger forgiveness for anything. ‘I had a few loose ends to tie up.’ Low and husky, her voice stroked against his skin like fur, and as she looked up at him Dan felt as if the ground was shifting dangerously beneath his feet.

She could tie him up any time. Hell, he’d have himself gift-wrapped and delivered …

Then, as Dan moved swiftly to open the car door, still reeling from the stunning effect of so much classy womanhood, he took the knock-out blow of her legs as she stepped up into the rear of the car. Legs clad in sheer black nylon beneath a skirt that did little more than peep from beneath the long line of her dark grey jacket—legs stretched almost to infinity by a pair of very high, very slender heels. The traffic warden saw them too, flashed him a grin that said ‘lucky devil’ before he shrugged and moved on.

Dan cleared his throat. ‘No problem. We’re all over the place ourselves this morning.’

‘Are you?’ Amanda, still enjoying the shocked look on Beth’s face as she’d let the door swing shut, leaned across to put her laptop and document case on the seat. Then she realised that the driver still had the door open. She glanced up into a pair of smoky-blue eyes that for just a moment made her heart miss a beat; smoky-blue eyes that shone out of the kind of sun-weathered face that a man gets when he spends as much of his time as possible out of doors.

And that was before he smiled. It wasn’t exactly a textbook smile. It was a lop-sided, conspiratorial affair, a lift at one corner of his mouth that pulled the deep lines etched down his cheeks into sharp relief. For some reason it made her think of a pirate with a cutlass between his teeth.

‘Yes?’ Her mouth felt as if she’d been chewing blotting paper.

‘You won’t forget your seat belt?’ he prompted, before closing the door.

‘What?’ Then, ‘Oh, yes.’ A deeply caring pirate. She gave herself a firm, mental shake and clicked the seat belt into place. ‘Why?’ she asked as he eased himself into the driving seat and started the powerful engine before glancing over his shoulder at the traffic.

‘Why what?’

‘Why are you all over the place?’ She found such details interesting. It was paying attention to those kind of details that had made her so successful. And she wanted to keep him talking.

‘We’re a man short,’ he explained, as he waited for a gap in the traffic. ‘The driver booked for this job had to rush off to the hospital.’

‘An accident?’

‘I wouldn’t care to comment on that.’ He grinned. ‘His wife is having a baby.’

Baby. The word triggered that gooey feeling that had been with her for weeks. She’d put on that high-powered, organised career woman faćade this morning because it was the only way she knew how to handle it. Beth was the gooey one. The one who fell in love at the drop of a hat, who sighed over babies. She’d thought she was immune.

Then her brother had announced that his new wife was pregnant.

Her mother had been so thrilled at the prospect of finally becoming a grandmother after giving up hope of either of her children doing the decent thing. She’d been delighted, too. After brushing aside that infinitesimal moment of chilling emptiness, of something that might just have been envy.

Brushed it aside, but not away. It had refused to leave her, which was probably why she had found herself in the baby department of a nearby department store a few days later, looking for a suitable gift for her first niece or nephew. Something pretty to decorate the nursery being prepared for the new baby.

She had only intended to spend ten minutes picking out some fluffy toy. Then she’d seen this tiny pair of velvet baby boots. White. Soft as down. With the littlest turn-back cuff.

A baby. ‘Her first?’ Amanda asked, on an odd little catch of breath, in a voice she scarcely recognised as her own.

‘Her fourth.’

Four babies. Amanda immediately found herself assailed by the image of four little bundles wrapped in white with blue ribbons, each one with smoky-blue eyes and a lop-sided smile. That was how it had been for weeks. Just the word was enough to trigger all kinds of fantasies.

‘She’s done it three times and she still needs her husband to hold her hand? How pathetic,’ she said, her tongue firmly in her cheek. How romantic, the unexpectedly soft centre whispered.

Daniel turned his head a little further and saw that his lovely passenger was smiling. Encouraged, he said, ‘To be honest, I think it’s more a case of her holding his.’ An hour ago Dan had been cursing the woman for going into labour early when they were so busy, forcing him to cancel a meeting and take out one of the cars himself. Quite suddenly he was prepared to take the philosophical view. ‘Men are such wimps.’

‘I’ll take your word for it.’ Not that she believed he was a wimp. Not for a minute. Not even the crisply efficient Miss Garland thought that. And her soft centre was absolutely certain that he would be a tower of strength, holding her hand, wiping her brow, reminding her when to breathe, when to pant. Stop it, right now! she ordered her hyperactive imagination. Then, as he waited for an opening in the seemingly endless string of traffic, she made a determined effort to pull herself together, concentrate on the matter in hand. ‘How long will it take to get to The Beeches? Can we make it by ten?’

‘I’ll do my best, but I’m running short of miracles for this week.’

Her groan was heartfelt. She should have left the minute the car had arrived, but she’d needed to sound out Beth. Without her support the whole thing would be a lot more complicated. She was going to need someone to mop her brow and hold her hand. Modern science might offer the perfect solution to her needs, but it wouldn’t be there to offer any of those extras, any of those tender touches.

‘Relax. If Miss Garland gives you a hard time for being late just suggest she tries driving through Knightsbridge at this time in the morning.’ His eyes crinkled in another of those killer smiles.

Miss Garland? He didn’t know? Didn’t realise who she was? It was her turn to smile.

‘And who shall I say sent the message?’

There was a hint of laughter in her voice and Dan glanced again at the mirror to check out what that mouth was doing. Actually, her mouth was worth looking at just for itself. Scarlet red and sexy as hell. ‘Daniel Redford. At your service, ma’am.’

‘I’ll be sure to tell her, Daniel Redford. In the meantime, since you’re at my service, will you please do your best to get me there on time?’

‘I’ll certainly try,’ he said, and, glancing over his shoulder, edged the car away from the kerb, forcing a cab driver to give way to him. The cab driver did not like it and expressed his feelings forcefully. Dan merely smiled and raised a hand in a gesture of thanks, as if the cabbie had given way politely. ‘I’ve heard she’s a bit of an old tartar,’ he said. ‘Your Miss Garland.’

‘Have you?’ The lady with the beautiful mouth seemed surprised. ‘Who told you that?’

‘She’s famous for it. Efficiency with a capital E. Are you a new girl?’

‘Er … no.’ The tartar in question wondered briefly what he would say if she told him the truth. She resisted the temptation. This was far more entertaining. ‘I’ve been with the agency since the very beginning.’

‘Oh, well, you’ll know all about her. What’s she like?’

‘I thought you knew all about her.’

He shrugged. ‘Only gossip.’

‘And the gossips say that she’s a tartar? No, wait, an efficient tartar.’

‘A very rich, efficient tartar I would imagine, if she charges the kind of fees that include chauffeur driven cars for her secretaries.’

He was making it up as he went along, she decided. Just to keep her talking. The thought made her want to smile. She tried very hard not to. ‘Her standards are certainly very high.’

‘I don’t suppose she’d approve of one her ‘‘girls’’ chatting with a common chauffeur, then?’

As long as they looked the part and did a good job, her ‘girls’ could chatter to whomsoever they wished, in their own time. ‘Are you common?’ she asked.

Amanda didn’t think so for a minute. His accent was pure London, but the streets had been pretty effectively scrubbed from it. And from the brief impression she’d had of him as he’d opened the door, waited for her to fasten her seat belt, she knew that few men of her acquaintance could have matched him for physical presence. He topped her by a head, with shoulders that could have borne the troubles of the world and the kind of bone structure that gave a face character. She catalogued his attributes and found none of them wanting. And there had been something distinctly uncommon about those eyes.

It occurred to Amanda that if she had been looking for a man, rather than a sperm donation, she would be hard pressed to find a more attractive proposition. The thought settled low in her abdomen and lingered there.

Was he common? It wasn’t the answer Daniel had expected, but it was certainly the one he deserved. He’d made the kind of remark that would leave a girl appearing snobbish, feeling uncomfortable if she didn’t answer, chose not to engage in conversation. Hardly the way to treat a paying customer, even if someone else was doing the paying.

He was pleased that she hadn’t fallen for it, but then his passenger was hardly a girl. She was a self-assured and very beautiful woman, far too mature to be taken in by that kind of line—by any kind of line for that matter. Looking the way she did, she was bound to have heard them all before. It would take originality to catch this lady’s attention, to hold it. It occurred to him that it was a long time since he’d met a woman capable of holding his.

‘I was a docklands brat,’ he said, leaving it for her to decide. ‘In the days when there were still docks worthy of the name.’ He still was, he realised, and smiled at the thought. He hadn’t moved very far from his roots.

‘In the days before the warehouses were bought by developers and converted into luxury homes for the seriously rich?’ He had been direct, assuming that the truth would put a brake on the conversation, but her mouth widened in another of those smiles. ‘A bit of a tearaway, were you?’

Got it in one. ‘I’m a model citizen these days,’ he assured her.

‘Mmm.’

The sound portrayed a world of doubt and Daniel laughed. Flirting was a bit like riding a bicycle; there might be a bit of a wobble when you hadn’t done it for a while, but it soon came back.

‘What about you?’ he asked.

Nice teeth, Amanda thought, looking at his smile reflected in the rear view mirror. Then gave herself a mental slap for checking him out feature by feature. As if she were looking over a stud horse. Nice mouth. ‘Am I a model citizen?’

‘That’s a given; after all you’re a Garland Girl. Highly trained, beautifully groomed and guaranteed trustworthy.’

Her shoulders lifted half a centimetre. The public relations image was still in place and doing the job, she was happy to note. It was the quality image she intended to exploit to the full with her plans for expansion. ‘I told you, Miss Garland has very high standards.’

‘Bad-tempered old tartars always use that excuse.’ Stuck fast in rush hour traffic, with nothing to do but look in his mirror at his passenger, he saw her mouth begin to form a protest, then give a little half-smile as if she were secretly amused by his less than flattering description of her boss, but she refused to join in. ‘How did you get to be one of the famous Garlands Girls?’ he prompted.

She’d been born to it, that was how. Garland had been her mother’s maiden name and she’d suggested that Amanda use it when she started the agency, rather than the family name of Fleming, just in case it had all gone pear-shaped. She’d been irritated at the time by this apparent lack of faith, but then a journalist doing a feature on secretarial agencies had coined the phrase ‘Garland Girls’ to describe her particular brand of educated, classy temps and it had stuck—become a brand-name almost. She was seriously thinking of trademarking it.

But she wasn’t about to tell this flirtatious chauffeur any of that. No matter how attractive his mouth, or uncommon his eyes. Or wicked his smile. ‘I took a secretarial course so that I could help my father. When he didn’t need me any more, I looked around for something else to do.’ Well, it was the truth, as far as it went.

‘I suppose if you’re going to be a temp, you might as well work for the best,’ he agreed.

‘Even if the boss is a bad-tempered old tartar?’ She saw his eyes reflected in the rearview mirror. He was looking straight at her and for just a moment she thought he knew, that he had simply been teasing her. Then the traffic began to move and he looked away as he eased the car forward.

‘Don’t you have any ambitions beyond temping?’

More than ambitions. Plans. Business plans and personal plans. And today she had put them into action. ‘Is all you ever wanted to be a driver?’ she countered.

Well, he’d asked for that, Daniel reflected. And when you came right down to it they both worked for other people by the hour. ‘I get to meet some interesting people that way,’ he said. And meant it.

‘So do I.’

There was something about that voice, something soft and warm that curled around his gut and settled there like a warm puppy. He looked again in the mirror, couldn’t stop himself, but all he could see was her mouth, full and shining and very kissable.

Kissable? This was getting out of hand. He readjusted the mirror, slipped on a pair of dark glasses and decided it would be a whole lot more sensible to keep his entire attention fixed on the rear of the car in front. His mouth couldn’t have been wired up to the sensible part of his brain, though. ‘Sometimes I even get to know their names,’ he said, encouragingly.

‘Do you?’ Amanda had wondered how long it would be before he got around to asking her name and she had looked forward to telling him. Looked forward to saying, I’m Amanda Garland. The old tartar. How d’you do? Watch him flinch. Instead she found herself saying, ‘I’m Mandy Fleming.’

Well, so she was. Her father had called her Mandy. Her brother still did. And Garland, after all, was just her professional name. Her company name. The old tartar’s name.

‘Isn’t that the old tartar’s name?’

His words echoed the ones in her head, mocking her. He had known all along … Who was going to look the idiot now?

‘Isn’t that your boss’s name?’ he repeated, when she didn’t reply. ‘Amanda Garland? Mandy’s short for Amanda isn’t it?’

Amanda released the breath she had been holding a touch too long. Why else would she feel breathless? ‘No one ever calls her anything but Miss Garland when I’m around,’ she said, with feeling. Except Beth, but they had been together since the beginning. She’d been the first temp she taken on her books and within a week had been running the office for her.

‘Definitely not a Mandy, eh?’

He had put on a pair of dark glasses and his eyes were hidden. ‘Not in the office,’ she agreed.

He stopped talking then, as the traffic began to move, and gave the business of getting out of London his full attention. For a moment she watched his hands as he manoeuvred the big car through the busy morning streets, then with a start she dragged her attention away, opened her laptop, switched it on, began to make some notes. But she found concentration tougher than usual. It had been so long since her heart-rate had picked up for anything except a workout at the gym that she’d almost forgotten how it felt.

She glanced out of the window at the relentless tedium of grey concrete office buildings as they sped along the Chiswick flyover. Nothing to distract her there, so she gave up trying to avoid staring at the back of Daniel Redford’s neck. He didn’t wear a cap, or uniform of any kind. The car hire company he worked for apparently dressed their drivers in wellcut grey double-breasted suits, a white shirt and burgundy tie with the company logo. Smart but unobtrusive. She made a note to think about what Garland nannies might wear.

Daniel’s bulk filled his suit to perfection. His light brown hair was skilfully cut, not too short, layered into his neck and brightened by the sun. Nice profile, too, what she could see of it from this angle. He had a good jaw line, hard cheekbones, and she remembered the kind of nose that looked as if it had lived life head-on. Not particularly pretty, but strong, like his big hands, with their long, square-tipped fingers, neatly trimmed nails. They held the wheel lightly, but he was a man in complete control of his environment, a man who would be in complete control of anything he touched …

‘Have you worked for Capitol Cars for long?’ she asked, distracting herself from the disturbing direction in which her thoughts were heading.

‘Twenty years.’

‘Really?’ His cheeks had moved so that she knew he was smiling, and even though he’d adjusted his mirror so that she could no longer see his mouth she remembered the lazy lift to one corner, the deep crease that had appeared like magic down his cheek as he had swept open the door for her. He was a heartbreaker and no mistake. And undoubtedly married; his kind always were. Forget it, Amanda, she told herself firmly. Stick to the plan. ‘You must enjoy the work, then.’

‘I suppose I must.’ She saw him glance at the mirror. Was he looking at her, or the traffic behind them? With his eyes hidden behind dark glasses it was impossible to tell. ‘The tips are good, too. I was given a couple of theatre tickets the other day.’ He mentioned the new musical that had opened to rave reviews a few weeks earlier.

‘That’s quite some tip. I’ve heard the tickets are like gold dust.’ Then she realised that he might think she was angling for an invitation. Maybe she was … ‘What was it like?’ she asked, quickly.

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘You don’t like the theatre?’ Or maybe his wife didn’t like the theatre. Not that he was wearing a ring. But then, these days it didn’t have to be marriage. A good-looking man in his late thirties, early forties was scarcely likely to be living alone. Not if he was straight. Oh, please let him be straight!

‘They’re for next week. What about you?’

‘What? Oh, the theatre.’ She swallowed. ‘Love it,’ she said, her heart leaping into overdrive as she anticipated his next question. He didn’t ask it. Definitely spoken for, she told herself as he mentioned a couple of plays he’d seen. Not that it mattered. Right now she needed to keep her life as simple as possible. Complications in the form of a sexy chauffeur were not in the plan. ‘I saw that,’ she interrupted. ‘It was incredible. Did you see …?’

Their tastes seemed to have a pleasant syncronicity. He might have been a dockland brat but he obviously appreciated good theatre. ‘I went to Pavarotti-in-the-Park, a couple of years ago,’ he said, after a while. ‘It rained all through, but it was worth it. Do you like that sort of stuff?’

Amanda had avoided mentioning opera, which would teach her to be such a damned snob, she thought. ‘Yes. I was there under my umbrella.’ Then, in for a penny, she thought. ‘I like the ballet, too.’

He wrinkled up his battered nose. ‘No. Sorry. There’s passion in opera. Ballet …’ He left her to fill in the blank.

‘Maybe you just haven’t seen the right ballet,’ she persisted.

‘Maybe.’ He sounded doubtful. ‘I like football, though.’

‘I think I’ll stick to ballet, thanks all the same.’

She saw his jaw lift in a smile. ‘Maybe you should try it before you judge.’

Touché. ‘What about your wife?’

Damn! She hadn’t meant to say that. Now he would know she was fishing.

‘My wife?’ He paused as they approached road-works, concentrated on dealing with a busy contra-flow of traffic.

‘Does she like football?’ Amanda held her breath. Her heart stopped beating.

‘I’ve never met a woman who does,’ he said. So? What did that mean? As if she didn’t know. ‘We’re almost there,’ he said, as they threaded through the cones and down the sliproad. ‘It looks like you’ll be on time after all.’

‘Wonderful.’ Fine. Perfect. Her head continued to churn out adjectives, none of which were wonderful, or fine, or perfect. In fact every one of them would have had Beth’s eyebrows glued to the ceiling.

For some minutes they sped through thickly wooded lanes, conversation at an end. Amanda, finding it essential to do something with her hands, reknotted the silk scarf at her throat, closed her laptop, gathered her case. By the time Daniel stopped in front of the portico of one of the most expensive hotels in England, she was ready to step out of the car and walk away. It was only determination to prove to herself that she was not desperate to escape that kept her in her seat, waiting for him to open the door for her.

Daniel slipped off the dark glasses, tucked them into his breast pocket, then walked around to open the door. High heels and gravel were a treacherous mix, and he offered his hand as she swung her legs out of the car. She placed her cool fingers on his without hesitation and straightened with all the poise of a model. All part of the ‘Garland Girls’ training, no doubt. ‘We’ve made it with two minutes to spare. You won’t get your wrist slapped by the dragon lady, after all,’ he said.

Only a man could be that patronising, Amanda decided, then amended the thought to a married man. A married man whose strong, work-hardened fingers were curled protectively about her own.

She very carefully removed her hand from his and glanced at her wristwatch to check the time. ‘Thank you, Daniel,’ she said, formally.

‘My pleasure, Miss Fleming.’ He moved to close the car door. ‘I’ll see you this evening.’

‘Will you?’ Her breath stilled in expectation.

‘At five.’

Of course. Why else would he see her? He had a wife. It was just as well. It wasn’t as if she needed him. Not for hard-to-get theatre tickets, not for anything. She could get her own tickets for any show in town, and all she had to do was click her fingers and half a dozen men would be fighting to lend her an arm, and anything else she wanted, for the evening.

Unfortunately she had never been able to work up much enthusiasm for any man who could be brought to heel like an eager puppy with his tongue hanging out, which was why she was making her own arrangements for the ‘anything else’.

But right now she was the one with her tongue dragging on the floor and it was definitely time to haul it back in.

‘I’ll try not to keep you waiting again,’ she said briskly, and walked into the hotel without a backward glance.

Daniel watched Mandy Fleming walk away from him. It wasn’t exactly a hardship. Those long legs moved her body along in the way a woman should be moved, slow and sexy. A woman’s walk said a lot about her. Mandy Fleming’s said confidence, style. But that straight back told him something else. She was feeling decidedly put out that he hadn’t asked her to go to the theatre with him. She’d have said no, but she’d expected to be asked. And he smiled to himself. How did that old saying go? Make ‘em laugh, make ‘em cry, make ‘em wait? He didn’t have much time for men who made women cry, but the other two … His smile broadened as he drove towards the gates of the hotel. Like riding a bicycle.

The morning dragged, endlessly. The afternoon was, if anything, worse, and Amanda had a hard time keeping herself focused as she gave her own presentation on the benefits of employing temporary staff. Just the slightest lapse in concentration and her mind was wandering off to dwell on smoky blue eyes and broad shoulders, good hands and a sexy smile, all carried on two well-muscled legs.

Two well-muscled, married legs.

CHAPTER TWO

DANIEL headed for the airport, picked up his passenger, delivered him to his hotel in Piccadilly and drove back to the garage. The traffic was a nightmare but he was working on automatic, his head full of Mandy Fleming.

How long had it been since a woman had stayed in his head for more than five minutes? How long had it been since he couldn’t wait to renew the acquaintance? But then Miss Fleming was one stylish lady. Those legs. That mouth.

His brows drew together as his thoughts strayed to the way she dressed. She had expensive tastes for a secretary. Even a top-of-the-range, seriously expensive Garland Agency secretary who merited a chauffeur-driven car.

Yet there had been something in her voice, something in her smile that had made his skin prickle with excitment. And the air had positively crackled with electricity when she’d put her hand on his for that briefest of touches. Oh, she’d been cool, her back ramrod-straight, but he knew she’d felt it too. The care with which she had removed her fingers from his had been too studied for anything else.

Then he pulled a face. Mandy Fleming wasn’t the kind of woman to be interested in a chauffeur. Well-educated, lovely to look at, she was the kind of secretary who would have her eyes firmly fixed on the boss rather than one of the bit-players. The thought brought an ironic smile to his lips, a smile that quickly faded.

Things had been so straightforward when he had been struggling to make a living with a one-car business. If a girl had smiled at him then he’d been sure that it wasn’t his money she was smiling at. All that had changed the day he’d bought a second car and taken on his first employee.

He pulled into the valeting area. ‘Any news from the hospital, Bob?’

‘It’s a girl, boss. Mother and baby doing well.’ There was nothing wrong with the words, just something about the way Bob said them that alerted him to trouble.

‘So what’s the problem?’ he asked.

Bob didn’t lift his gaze from the coach-built body-work he was stroking to an eye-dazzling shine; he simply jerked his grey head in the direction of the office. ‘Sadie arrived about half an hour ago. She’s in the office.’

Dan said something short and scatological.

‘It’s not half-term is it?’

‘No.’

The older man straightened, wadded his duster, squinted along the gleaming bonnet. ‘Thought not.’

No one was eager to meet his eye as he strode through the yard and into the office. As he set eyes on his daughter, he could see why.

She was sitting in his chair with her knee-high Doc Martens propped defiantly upon his desk. Her clothes, black to a stitch, could only have come from some charity shop, and her hair, shoulder-length and gleaming chestnut the last time he had seen her, had been cropped and dyed the kind of black from which no light escaped. Her face, in contrast, was dead white, her eyes rimmed with heavy black lines, her nails painted to match. She looked as if she was auditioning for the role of Morticia Addams but had forgotten the glamour, and it was all he could do to prevent himself from flinching. Since that was undoubtedly the effect she was striving to achieve, he made the effort.

He’d hoped that this was simply a day-trip, an excursion, a little French leave from the boarding school that charged a queen’s ransom to turn the daughters of those who could afford the fees into the very best they could be, academically and socially—and, in his daughter’s case, were fighting a losing battle. One look was all it had taken to quell any such notion.

‘Mercedes,’ he murmured, acknowledging her presence as he helped himself to coffee from the machine his secretary kept permanently on the go. Sadie hated being called that. She knew as well as he did that her name had been Vickie’s idea of a joke, a constant reminder that he’d had to cancel the Mercedes he’d had on order when he’d discovered that he was about to become a father. But right now he wasn’t in the mood to indulge his daughter with pet names. ‘I didn’t realise you had a holiday.’ He lifted her boot-clad feet from his desk and dropped them to the floor before turning his diary round to check the entries against the date. ‘No, you’re not here. It’s not like Karen to make a mistake—’

‘I didn’t think I had to make an appointment to see my own father.’ Sadie pushed the chair back and stood up. Dear God, she seemed to grow six inches each time he saw her. Guilt suggested that was because he didn’t see her often enough. But that was her choice. Apart from a grudging week at the cottage, she’d spent the entire summer with school-friends.

‘You don’t. Just lately it’s been the other way around.’

‘Yes, well, that’s all about to change. I’ve been suspended from school,’ she declared defiantly. ‘And you might as well know, I’ve no intention of going back.’ He made no comment. ‘You can’t make me.’

He was well aware of that fact. She was sixteen, and if she refused to go back to school there was precious little he could do about it except point out the pitfalls of cutting short her education.

‘You’ve re-sits in November,’ he reminded her calmly. The expletive that told him what he could with his re-sits would have earned him boxed ears from his mother at that age. But then Sadie didn’t have a mother, at least not one who cared to be reminded that she had a daughter rapidly approaching womanhood, so he ignored the bad language, as he had ignored her appearance. She was doing her level best to shock him, make him angry. He was both, but he knew better than to show it. ‘You won’t be able to do anything without English and maths.’

‘You didn’t bother about exams—’

‘Nobody cared what I did, Sadie. Does Mrs Warburton know where you are?’ He mentioned her headmistress before she could point out that her mother didn’t care much about her own firstborn, either.

‘No. I was sent to my room to wait until someone could spare the time to bring me home. They probably think I’m still there.’ She threw back her head and laughed. ‘They’ll be running around like headless chickens when they realise I’ve gone.’

He pressed the intercom. ‘Karen, call Mrs Warburton at Dower House and let her know that Sadie is with me.’

‘Yes, Dan.’

‘Then will you organise some flowers and fruit for Brian’s wife—’

‘I’ve already taken care of it. And Ned Gresham’s agreed to come in and cover for him.’ Karen might not have the glamour of a Garland Girl, but she was their equal in every other way. Dan recalled Mandy’s smile, slightly parted lips, the way her fingers had felt as they had rested briefly on his and the way his skin had tightened at the contact. Not quite every way, which was probably just as well. A sexy secretary combined with a garage full of impressionable drivers and mechanics was nothing short of a recipe for disaster. ‘Do you want me to write him in for the five o’clock pick-up from The Beeches?’ She didn’t say, Now that Sadie’s arrived. She didn’t need to.

With just a touch of regret, he surrendered the memory, the anticipated pleasure … But not to Ned Gresham. With his public school accent and chiselled good looks, the man thought he was God’s gift to women. A lot of women thought that too. The idea of him flirting with Mandy Fleming … ‘No. Ask Bob to do it.’ He kept his finger on the button for a moment. ‘Tell him he can take Miss Fleming home rather than back to the Garland offices if she prefers.’

Karen laughed. ‘Pretty, was she?’

‘Simple public relations, Karen. Please the secretary and you’ve got the boss.’

‘And if Miss Fleming lives on the other side of London?’

‘She’ll be even more impressed and Bob will enjoy the overtime.’

‘She was that pretty?’

‘I didn’t notice.’ His lie was rewarded with the disbelieving snort it merited before he flicked the switch. Dan straightened and looked at his daughter, remembering the pretty child she had been, seeing the lovely woman she would become once she stopped trying to hurt him, hurt herself—but only because her mother wasn’t around to take the abuse in person. ‘Come on,’ he said.

‘I’m not going back,’ she repeated stubbornly.

‘I heard you, Sadie. I’m not taking you back to school, but I’m not leaving you to run around London on your own. If you’re not going back to school you’re going to have to work for a living.’

‘Work?’ Sadie’s careless certainty, the belief that she was the one calling the shots, wavered. That gave Dan hope.

‘You leave school; you have three choices. If you’ve decided not to do re-sits, college is a non-starter. The alternative is work, and since you’re hardly likely to have employers lining up for the privilege of signing you up, you’ll have to work for me.’ He waited for her reaction. When none was forthcoming he added, ‘Of course you’re welcome to try the Job Centre if you think you can do better?’

‘You said three choices.’

‘You could telephone your mother and see if she’ll offer you a home.’ He had his fingers mentally crossed. The last thing he wanted for Sadie was a lotus-eating existence with her mother. ‘I don’t suppose she would expect you to work for your living.’

Her response left no room for doubt about Sadie’s feelings on the subject. Daniel hadn’t anticipated ever feeling sorry for his ex-wife, yet for a woman to have earned so much scorn from her own daughter would wring sympathy from a stone. ‘No? Well, it’s not too late to change your mind.’ His gaze rested momentarily on her hair. ‘Assuming the suspension is not as permanent as your hair colour.’

‘Read my lips, Dad.’ She pointed a black-painted fingernail at her mouth and said, very slowly and very carefully, ‘I am not going back to school.’

‘Are you going to tell me why? Or are you going to wait for Mrs Warburton’s letter to arrive? I imagine she will write to me.’

‘Yeah.’ Her voice was all careless indifference, but her gaze slid away from him as she stuffed a hand into the pocket of her black leather bomber jacket and tossed a crumpled envlope onto the desk. Not so tough as she would have him believe, his little girl, and his insides turned over; it was all he could do to stop himself from grabbing her and hugging her and telling her that it didn’t matter, that whatever she’d done it didn’t matter because he loved her.

By the time she had gathered herself sufficiently to fix him with a belligerent glare, he was looking out of the window, contemplating the yard as if he had nothing more on his mind than the price of engine oil. He ignored the letter. ‘I’d rather hear it from you.’ His tone was mild, but his heart was beating like a steam pump. ‘Was it drink?’ he prompted. ‘Boys?’ He turned to look at her, his mouth suddenly bonedry. ‘Drugs?’

‘What do you take me for?’

An average teenage girl with more money than was good for her and a desperate need to lash out, to hurt the people who loved her.

‘I’ve been suspended for a week, that’s all.’ Under the white make-up he could have sworn she blushed. ‘For dying my hair, if you must know.’

It had to be relief that made him want to laugh. ‘Just for dying your hair? Mrs Warburton isn’t usually that harsh.’ Surely living with the colour while it grew out would be punishment enough. ‘Is she?’ he demanded sharply, suddenly very sure that she wasn’t telling the whole truth.

Sadie lifted her shoulders in a couldn’t-care-less shrug. ‘Yes, well, when the Warthog had me in her office to haul me over the coals for ‘‘letting down the high standards of Dower House School’’…’ she affected a nasal twang that was a cruel caricature of Mrs Warburton’s aristocratic accent ‘… I suggested it was time she touched up her own roots because the grey was showing.’

He put down his cup, turned away, his lips curled hard against his teeth. ‘I can see how that might not have helped matters,’ he said, when he was sure he wouldn’t betray himself.

‘Hypocritical old cow.’

He was forced to cover his mouth, pretend to cough. ‘Maybe so, but that really wasn’t very kind.’

‘She shouldn’t have made such a big deal about it. Anyone would think I’d had my nose pierced, or something.’

‘That’s banned too, is it?’

‘Everything’s banned. Of course if I’m not going back, I suppose I could—’

‘Your mother had her nose pierced the last time I saw her,’ he said. ‘She was wearing a diamond stud.’

Sadie said nothing; she didn’t have to. Dan knew she wasn’t about to do anything that would make her look more like her mother than she already did. Or had done, until she’d dyed her hair. That was something to be grateful for.

‘So, when do I start this wonderful job, then?’

Her tone was as belligerent as her expression, but adolescent rebellion was something he knew all about; this wasn’t the moment to demand she apologise. Despite the ‘hard girl’ act, he was sure she didn’t need to be told what was required, whether she returned to school or not. He was also sure that she was more likely to get on with it if she wasn’t nagged.

‘No time like the present. Come on, I’ll get you an overall and then we’ll go and find Bob.’

‘I can’t wait.’ The heavy sarcasm suggested that this was going to be a long week. He just hoped, for both their sakes, that at the end of it Sadie would realise that school was a soft option compared with working for a living. And that Mrs Warburton was in a forgiving mood.

Should he have tried harder to persuade her to go back? What would her mother have done? Not much. Vickie was in the Bahamas with her latest lover and a new baby to drool over. He doubted if she would welcome a phone call reminding her that she had a daughter approaching an age at which she would become competition. Instinct suggested that his best bet was to set Sadie to work and hope that a week of mind-numbing drudgery would do the job for him.

‘What am I going to have to do?’

‘The options are limited since you can’t drive—’

‘I can drive,’ she declared fiercely. ‘Better than most people.’

That was true. He’d taught her to drive in the field behind the cottage he had bought a couple of years back, and she could handle a motorbike or a car with all the panache of a professional. ‘You can’t drive a car on the road until you’re seventeen, Sadie. You can’t even move one across the yard until you have your licence because you wouldn’t be insured.’ She didn’t answer, but it was obvious that calling her bluff was not going to have any immediate effect. ‘Perhaps you should try a bit of everything. Make yourself useful about the place.’

‘Be a dogsbody, you mean?’ She was not impressed. ‘Great.’

‘If you plan on running this outfit one day you might as well find out how everything works.’

‘Who said I was?’ she demanded.

‘If you don’t go to college you won’t have much choice. You can start in the garage with Bob. He’ll show you the ropes.’

‘Cleaning cars.’ Only an adolescent could endow two such inoffensive words with quite that level of scorn. ‘You didn’t start this business by cleaning cars.’

‘I started with one car, Sadie, and I promise you, it didn’t clean itself.’

‘Very funny.’

‘You think you’re such a catch? Come back when you’ve seen what the Job Centre has to offer and we’ll talk again.’

‘But you’re my father; you can’t expect me to skivvy for you …’ Something in his expression must have warned her that she was doing herself no favours, because she stopped. ‘Okay, okay, whatever you say.’

If only. ‘And one other thing, Sadie. During working hours you’re no different from anyone else around here, you’re an employee with the same privileges and the same responsibilities. That means you arrive on time—’

‘That won’t be difficult. Just give me a call five minutes before you leave.’

‘I don’t provide a wake-up service for my staff, Sadie. And I don’t give them a lift to work, either. The only place I’m prepared to drive you to is Dower House, next Monday morning.’

‘Don’t bother. I’m sure there’s a bus.’

‘There is.’ He was looking out of the window, contemplating the business that he had built from scratch. It had been hard. Twenty-four hours a day work, and worry that had left him with too little time to invest in his marriage, too distracted by his own big ideas to notice when his wife had gone looking for company elsewhere. Or perhaps he’d needed the big ideas and the twenty-four-hour work schedule to distract him from his marriage. He turned to his errant daughter. ‘And while you’re here,’ he instructed, ‘you’ll do anything Bob asks of you. In return you get as much tea and coffee as you can drink, a cooked lunch in the café next door and clean overalls every morning. I’m afraid you have to be eighteen before you can join the pension scheme.’

‘My dad, the comedian.’

‘Your boss, the comedian. At least while you’re at the garage.’

‘You’re kidding, right?’ He didn’t bother to reply. ‘Okay … boss. How much do I get paid for doing the dirty work around here?’

‘The going rate for the job. After deductions for tax and national insurance you might earn almost as much as your allowance.’

‘Do I still get the allowance?’

‘What do you think?’

Amanda couldn’t wait for five o’clock. She had been looking forward to attending this seminar, but it had proved mind-numbingly dull. Or maybe it was just that her mind had other things to occupy it. A pair of capable hands. A quiff of sun-bleached hair with a will of its own. A dangerously attractive smile that still made her feel warm inside. Ridiculous.

Well, she was being ridiculous all round today. Common sense suggested it would have been wiser to call Capitol and cancel that five o’clock car. Her mother lived only a few miles away; she could have got a taxi there, stayed the night. Stayed the weekend, even. Except that she wasn’t quite ready to share her plans.

And now she’d left it too late.

She emerged from the hotel and glanced around, looking for Daniel, expecting to see him leaning against the bulk of his car. He wasn’t. Maybe he’d expected her to be late again, because the big dark blue Mercedes was on the far side of the car park and he was sitting inside it. Oh, well. She pinned a bright, careless smile in place and crossed the gravel. In the event, it was unnecessary, because the man who looked up from the driver’s seat was not Daniel Redford.

The plunging sense of disappointment certainly put that careless smile in its place. She definitely cared. Which was pretty stupid since she had only met the man once. Apparently that didn’t matter as much as she’d thought it did.

‘Yes, miss?’ The man had made no move to get out and open the car door for her, and for a moment she floundered before finding her voice.

‘You are from Capitol Cars, aren’t you? I didn’t realise I’d have a different driver.’

‘You haven’t got a different driver.’ She swung around at the sound of Daniel’s voice. ‘You have a different car, which is probably why you didn’t see me.’

How could she have missed him? He must have seen her confusion because he was smiling as he took her arm. ‘I’m parked over there.’ Her eyes widened as she took in the opulent lines of a classic wine-red Jaguar parked on the far side of the hotel entrance. She’d been so intent on looking for a Mercedes, for Daniel, that she hadn’t even noticed it. Amanda smiled apologetically at the driver of the Mercedes and walked with Daniel across to his car. ‘Well, this is different,’ she said.

‘Someone rear-ended the Mercedes this afternoon.’

Concern brought her to a halt and she looked up at him anxiously. ‘Were you hurt?’

‘Hurt?’ Then he shook his head. ‘Oh, no. I wasn’t driving it when it happened.’ They reached the car. ‘I hope you don’t mind this old jalopy.’

‘Mind?’ She glanced at him. ‘Why should I mind? She’s absolutely beautiful. A real classic.’ Whether the Jaguar merited quite that amount of breathy admiration was a moot point. But Amanda needed some excuse for her breathlessness.

‘Well, I’m glad you like her because there is a bit of a problem.’ Then he did that thing with the smile that made simple breathlessness seem like a piece of cake. ‘Because she’s rather mature, there are no seat belts in the rear, so you’ll have to sit up front with me.’

‘That’s not a problem. That’s a pleasure.’ She surrendered her laptop and document case to Daniel, and as he opened the door for her she stepped into the leather-scented interior. ‘My father had a car like this,’ she said, when he joined her. ‘It was dark green.’

‘The height of luxury in its time.’

‘It’s still luxury. A real treat after a dull day.’

‘I wish I’d had a dull day.’ There was a world of feeling in his voice as he started the car.

‘A baby and a rear-ending. Yes, I can see how that might complicate your life.’

‘They were the easy problems. After all, the baby isn’t mine and someone else’s insurance company will be paying for the damage to the car.’

‘There’s more?’

‘They say things happen in threes. My daughter chose today to drop out of school.’

His daughter. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. And she meant it. In more ways than one. The happy haze evaporated as quickly as it had formed at the sound of his voice. He had a daughter. Well, what was the big surprise in that? She’d asked about his wife and he’d been evasive. She should have remembered that before she’d made an utter fool of herself with her stupid That’s a pleasure …

Well, that would teach her to let her mind go awandering. He had a wife, and a wife almost inevitably meant children. But the inevitability of it didn’t stop her heart from sinking like a soggy sponge.

‘Was there any special reason?’ she asked. Well, she had to say something. ‘For the dropping out?’

‘She flunked her GCSEs last summer. I’m hoping she’s just a bit fed up because all her friends have moved on to the sixth form while she’s stuck with re-sits.’ Daniel pulled out of the parking bay and headed for the gates.

‘Hoping?’

‘I suspect it may be a symptom of something worse.’ There was what seemed like an endless pause as he reached the gates, waited for the traffic, then pulled out into the lane.

She couldn’t ask. Could she? ‘A symptom?’ Amanda prompted, once they were cruising.

Daniel Redford glanced at her briefly. Then, as if coming to a decision, he said, ‘Her mother abandoned her when she was eight years old. The divorce was a long time ago, but I have the feeling that it’s finally caught up with her.’

‘Oh, I am sorry.’ And she was. She might be glad that Daniel was unattached. The soggy sponge might be making a miraculous recovery. But she couldn’t be happy that a little girl had been abandoned by her mother. ‘That’s a terrible thing to happen to any child. What’ll you do?’

‘With Sadie?’ He glanced across at her and quite unexpectedly grinned. Sadie might have taken her mother’s abandonment hard, but she didn’t get the feeling that Daniel Redford was too bothered. ‘I’ve put her to work cleaning cars at the garage. I’m hoping a week of that might help to change her mind.’

‘It would certainly send me scurrying back to my books. But shouldn’t you be at home with her now, helping her sort out her life, instead of chauffeuring me about the place?’

‘I should. In fact you were rescheduled for another driver, but what with the shunt and a baggage handlers’ strike delaying a couple of airport jobs, it all got a bit complicated. Don’t worry about it. I’ve no doubt she’s very grateful for the opportunity to avoid me for another hour or two.’

Amanda was grateful too. So grateful that she sent a silent thank you to the striking airport baggage handlers, wherever they were.

‘Well, you’ve got all weekend to talk. Maybe it’ll seem clearer after a good night’s sleep.’

‘Maybe. And, since the urge to dropout was precipitated by a week’s suspension from school, there’s no rush.’

‘You certainly seem to have your hands full.’ Well, they were big, capable hands and she was rather hoping to fill them herself. The thought came from nowhere, and Amanda made a determined effort to drag her subconscious back onto the straight and narrow. ‘What’s she been suspended for?’

‘Oh, nothing too dreadful. She dyed her hair.’

‘That’s all?’

‘Not quite.’

Amanda found it disgracefully hard not to laugh when he told her what Sadie had done. The fact that Daniel’s mouth was betraying his own amusement didn’t help, and her repressed giggle erupted without warning.

‘Horrible child,’ she said, when she had recovered her breath.

He grinned. ‘Do you know, I have the feeling that is exactly what the formidable Miss Garland would have said if she were here?’

‘Is that what you think?’ She laughed at that, too. In fact she was laughing rather a lot, she noticed. The seminar might have been dull but in every other way the day was turning out very well indeed. ‘I can see I shall have to be very careful, or I’ll become just like her.’

‘Sure,’ he said. They were stopped at traffic lights and he turned on the full force of that killer smile. ‘When shrimps learn to whistle.’

‘Er, excuse me? Was that supposed to be compliment?’

‘Well, you know Miss Garland. What would you say?’

Any number of things, Amanda thought, none of them what he expected. But why risk spoiling things? ‘I’d say, I’ve had a boring day and you’ve had a fretful one. Why don’t we stop somewhere and I’ll treat us both to a cup of coffee and a sticky bun as a treat?’

Daniel didn’t answer, and for a moment she thought perhaps she’d gone too far. Then he signalled a left turn and pulled onto the forecourt of one of those bright, cheerful little restaurants that provide coffee and comfort food twenty-four hours a day for busy travellers. Only then did he turn to her. ‘Was this what you had in mind?’

‘What do you do for an encore?’

‘Sorry?’

‘After the mind-reading trick.’

‘If I could read minds I’d know what to do about Sadie,’ he said as he opened the door for her.

If you could read minds, Amanda thought, I’d be in big trouble.

She picked up a tray, but Daniel took it from her. ‘I dare say you’ve been running about with cups of tea for spoilt executives all day. Go and sit down. I’ll get the coffee.’

‘Garland Girls don’t make coffee,’ she said, surrendering the tray but following him along the counter. Then added, straight-faced, ‘Well, not unless it’s Jamaica Blue Mountain.’

He stopped by the self-service capuccino. ‘You’re sure you want to risk this?’

She put a mug beneath the spout and pressed the button. ‘This is fine. It just needs a good slosh of chocolate powder.’ She repeated the process. ‘And now we need a truly sticky bun,’ she said crisply. ‘What about those?’

He looked at an array of Danish pastries. ‘Was your day that bad?’

Her day had been something of a roller-coaster ride. At the moment she was on top, but she was well aware that the next half an hour could take it either way. Or maybe she was just kidding herself. ‘Actually, on second thoughts, nothing could be that bad. But you go ahead.’

‘The coffee will do just fine.’ He insisted on paying for it and carried the tray to a table.

They sat opposite one another, and for a moment neither of them said anything. Amanda realised she had started something she didn’t know quite how to finish.

Daniel stirred his coffee. ‘I was wondering,’ he said, after a moment. ‘About those tickets—’

From somewhere near her feet, Amanda’s mobile phone began to ring. She ignored it. ‘Tickets?’ she prompted.

The phone continued to trill urgently. ‘Hadn’t you better answer that?’

Amanda sent a silent message to whatever gremlin was in charge of messing up the communication networks. He was out. And the phone kept on ringing. She retrieved it from her bag. ‘Yes?’

‘Amanda, where are you? you’ve got to come back to the office!’ Beth sounded like an over-excited puppy.

She was horribly conscious of Daniel, watching her. ‘What’s happened?’

‘I been talking to Guy Dymoke!’

Guy Dymoke? ‘Do you mean Guy Dymoke the actor?’

‘Actor?’ Beth’s voice rose several octaves. ‘I’ve never noticed whether he can act. The man is sex on legs—’

‘And?’ Amanda interrupted before the woman passed out from excitment.

‘And he’s shooting a new movie in London. He needs a secretary, sweetie, and he wants one of our girls.’

Amanda glanced at Daniel, who was trying not to look too interested. ‘Can’t you handle it?’

‘Are you kidding? He wants to talk to the boss.’

‘When?’

‘Right now. He’s at Brown’s Hotel. How soon can you get there?’

Amanda looked at Daniel. The honeyed cowlick of hair. The haze-blue eyes. The roller-coaster hit downhill. ‘Hold on.’ She pressed the secrecy button. ‘Daniel, I’m sorry, but I need to get to Brown’s Hotel as quickly as possible. How long will it take?’

Like riding a bicycle, eh? Daniel had been running on instinct with Mandy Fleming, ignoring every rule in the book. What on earth had he been thinking of? If he ever found out that one of his drivers had done something like this the man would be out on his ear.

And then Mandy’s phone had rung and he’d been off the hook.

At least that was what he kept telling himself after he’d dropped her off in Albemarle Street to meet the one man in the world just about any woman would give her right arm to be sharing a hotel suite with. Even if she was just taking shorthand notes.

CHAPTER THREE

‘AND the earliest available date that the clinic could manage was in November.’ Having dragged every last detail of her meeting with Guy Dymoke out of her, Beth was finally bringing Amanda up to date on last Friday’s calls.

‘November?’ Amanda wanted a child of her own and she knew this was the sensible, rational way to go about it. So why, suddenly, did it seem so cold-blooded, so heartless? How would they go about it? Would they give her a check-list of features she wanted in her donor—six foot three, shoulders just so big, eyes like heat haze on a summer day … ‘November is fine. There’s no mad rush.’

‘Oh? Have you been reading all those child-rearing books and gone off the idea?’

‘Of course not.’ Well, not exactly. But she had spent the weekend thinking about watching her baby grow and wondering where that dimple had come from, or why his hair fell in a cowlick over his forehead. About living with the fact that she’d never be able to say You’re just like your father …

‘Are you sure there were no other messages?’

‘No. Were you expecting one?’

‘Yes … No …’ She caught Beth’s eye. ‘Well, maybe.’

Daniel opened his desk drawer and the pale jade earring seemed to wink at him, encouraging him to pick up the phone and call the Garland Agency. Instead he reached for an envelope, wrote Mandy’s name on it. He’d drop it in their letterbox tonight. It was the sensible thing to do.

‘Okay. Tell me all about him.’

‘Who?’

‘The guy who hasn’t phoned.’

‘He’s no one you know.’ Beth just grinned and Amanda felt herself going rather warm. ‘I met him on Friday.’

‘And?’

There was no point in beating about the bush. ‘I think he might be quite perfect.’

‘A perfect man? Darling, there’s no such animal.’

‘It depends what you want the animal for.’ And this time she did blush.

It took a moment for the penny to drop, but when it did Beth grinned broadly. ‘Oh, I see. That’s why you weren’t bothered about the waiting list at the clinic. You’ve found your own personal sperm bank and you’re planning on making a withdrawal. What’s his name?’

Well, it wasn’t a State secret. ‘Daniel Redford.’

‘Nice name.’ Beth straightened from her chair and crossed to the coffee pot. ‘Want some?’ she offered, picking up the pot.

‘No, thanks. I’m on a pre-pregnancy diet.’

‘Oh? Since when?’

‘Since I met Daniel Redford.’

‘I do like a woman who knows her mind.’ Beth poured herself a cup of coffee, added cream and sugar, then, cradling the steaming cup between her fingers, she leaned back against the table and regarded her boss thoughtfully. ‘Lust at first sight, was it?’ She didn’t wait for a reply. ‘Well, it has to be. I suppose he was at the seminar? Well, you don’t waste time, Amanda, I’ll give you that. Once you see something you want, you go for it.’ She sipped her coffee.

‘And how does Daniel Redford feel about being the father of your child?’

‘I haven’t asked him.’ She pulled absently on one of the long amber earrings she was wearing. ‘Maybe I’m just kidding myself.’ She’d hoped he would have called and left a message on the office answering machine over the weekend. She’d checked it half a dozen times. Maybe he’d changed his mind about … well, whatever it was he’d been about to say about tickets when Beth’s call had interrupted them.

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