Praise for Jessica Hart

‘Sweet and witty, with great characters and sizzling sexual tension, this one’s a fun read.’

—RT Book Reviews on Honeymoon with the Boss

‘Strong conflict and sizzling sexual tension drive this well-written story. The characters are smart and sharp-witted, and match up perfectly.’

—RT Book Reviews on Cinderella’s Wedding Wish

‘Well-written characters and believable conflict make the faux-engagement scenario work beautifully … and the ending is simply excellent.’

—RT Book Reviews on Under the Boss’s Mistletoe

‘Hart triumphs with a truly rare story … It’s witty and charming, and [it’s] a keeper.’

—RT Book Reviews on Oh-So-Sensible Secretary

About the Author

JESSICA HART was born in West Africa, and has suffered from itchy feet ever since, travelling and working around the world in a wide variety of interesting but very lowly jobs—all of which have provided inspiration on which to draw when it comes to the settings and plots of her stories. Now she lives a rather more settled existence in York, where she has been able to pursue her interest in history—although she still yearns sometimes for wider horizons.

If you’d like to know more about Jessica, visit her website: www.jessicahart.co.uk

Also by Jessica Hart

The Secret Princess

Ordinary Girl in a Tiara

Juggling Briefcase & Baby

Oh-So-Sensible Secretary

Under the Boss’s Mistletoe

Honeymoon with the Boss

Cinderella’s Wedding Wish

Last-Minute Proposal

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

We’ll Always Have Paris

Jessica Hart

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Isabel, dear friend and research advisor,

with love on her own Chapter Ten.

CHAPTER ONE

Media Buzz

We hear that MediaOchre Productions are celebrating a lucrative commission from Channel 16 to make a documentary on the romance industry. MediaOchre are keeping the details under wraps, but rumours are rife that an intriguing combination of presenters has been lined up. Stella Holt, still enjoying her meteoric rise from WAG to chat show host, says that she is ‘thrilled’ to have been invited to front the programme, but remains coy about the identity of her co-presenter.

One name being whispered is that of the economist, Simon Valentine, whose hard-hitting documentary on banking systems and their impact on the very poorest both here and in developing countries has led to a boom in micro-financing projects that is reputed to be revolutionising opportunities for millions around the world. Valentine, a reluctant celebrity, shot to fame with his crisp analysis of the global recession on the news, and has since become the unlikely pin-up of thinking women throughout the country. MediaOchre are refusing to confirm or deny the rumour. Roland Richards, its flamboyant executive producer, is uncharacteristically taciturn on the subject and is sticking to ‘no comment’ for now.

‘No,’ SAID Simon Valentine. ‘No, no, no, no, no. No.’

Clara’s cheeks were aching with the effort of keeping a cheery smile in place. Simon couldn’t see it on the phone, of course, but she had read somewhere that people responded more positively if you smiled when you were talking.

Not that it seemed to be having an effect on Simon Valentine.

‘I know it’s hard to make a decision without having all the facts,’ she said, desperately channelling her inner Julie Andrews. The Sound of Music was Clara’s favourite film of all time. Julie had coped with a Captain and seven children, so surely Clara shouldn’t be daunted by one disobliging economist?

‘I’d be happy to meet you and answer any questions you might have about the programme,’ she offered brightly.

‘I don’t have any questions.’ Clara could practically hear him grinding his teeth. ‘I have no intention of appearing on your programme.’

Clara had a nasty feeling that her positive smile was beginning to look more like a manic grin. ‘I understand you might want to take a little time to think about it.’

‘Look, Ms … whatever you’re called …’

‘Sterne, but please call me Clara.’

Simon Valentine ignored the invitation. ‘I don’t know how to make myself clearer,’ he said, his voice as tightly controlled as the image that stared out from Clara’s computer screen.

She had been Googling him, hoping to find some chink in his implacable armour, some glimpse of humour or a shared interest that she could use to build a connection with him, but details of his private life were frustratingly sparse. He had a PhD in Development Economics—whatever they were—from Harvard, and was currently a senior financial analyst with Stanhope Harding, but what use was that to her? You couldn’t get chatty about interest rates or the strength of the pound—or, at least, you couldn’t if you knew as little about economics as Clara did. She had been hoping to discover that he was married, or played the drums in his spare time, or had a daughter who loved ballet or … something. Something she could relate to.

As it was, she had established his age to be thirty-six and the story of how he had quietly used his unexpected celebrity to revolutionize the funding of small projects around the world. So great had been the uproar in response to the programme he had written and presented that the big financial institutions had been forced to rethink their lending policies, or so Clara had understood it. She had read lots of stories from small collectives in sub-Saharan Africa, from farmers in South America and struggling businesses in South East Asia, as well as in the more deprived parts of the UK, all of whom had credited Simon Valentine with changing their lives.

It was all very impressive, but Simon himself remained an elusive figure. As far as Clara could see, he had been born a fully fledged, suit-wearing economist who had no interest in celebrity for its own sake.

There were no snaps of him staggering out of a club at four in the morning, no furtive shots of him shopping with a girlfriend. The ideal, of course, would have been some cheesy shots of Simon Valentine showing his ‘lovely home’ in the gossip mags, but Clara wasn’t unreasonable. She had known that was a long shot, but she had thought she might at least find a picture of him at some reception, glass in hand.

But no. All she had was this corporate head and shoulders shot. He had the whole steely-jawed, gimlet-eyed thing going on, which Clara could sort of see the appeal of, although it didn’t do much for her. His tie was straight and rigidly knotted, his jacket stiff, his shoulders squared. The guy had some serious control issues, in Clara’s opinion.

Come to think of it, he had a definite Captain von Trapp quality to him, although he wasn’t nearly as attractive as Christopher Plummer. Obviously. Still, Clara could imagine him summoning his children with a whistle.

Hmm. The thought gave her a definite frisson. Perhaps a rousing rendition of Edelweiss would do the trick?

‘Are you listening to me?’ Simon Valentine demanded.

Hastily, Clara jerked her mind back from Salz burg. ‘Of course.’

‘Good, then I say this for one last time. I have no intention of appearing on your programme.’ Simon spoke very distinctly and with exaggerated patience, as if addressing a naughty child. ‘I don’t need time to think about it now, just as I didn’t need time when you emailed me the first time, or when you rang me for the fourth. My answer was no then, just as it’s no now, and as it is always going to be. N. O. No. It’s a very simple word. Do you understand what it means?’

Of course she understood. She might not be an academic like the rest of her family, but she had mastered the English language. It was Simon Valentine who didn’t understand how important this was.

‘If I could just expl—’ she began desperately, but Simon, it appeared, had had enough explanations.

‘Please do not try and call me again, or I will get very angry.’

And he cut the connection without waiting for her reply.

Clara slumped, making a face at the phone as she switched it off and tossed it onto the desk in defeat. Now what?

‘Well? What did he say?’

She spun her chair round to see the director of Romance: Fact or Fiction? hovering in the doorway. ‘I’m sorry, Ted,’ she said. ‘He’s just not going to do it.’

‘He’s got to say yes!’ Ted wrung his hands, the way he had been wringing them ever since Clara had first come up against a flat refusal from Simon Valentine. ‘Roland’s already promised Stella that Simon Valentine is on board!’

‘Ted, I know. Why else do you think I’ve been harassing him?’ But Clara was careful not to snap. Ted was one of her closest friends, and she knew how anxious he was about the new flat he and his partner had just bought.

More wringing of hands. ‘What are we going to do?’

‘I don’t know.’ With a sigh, Clara swung back to contemplate her computer screen. Simon Valentine gazed austerely back at her, the inflexible set of his lips taunting her with the impossibility of ever getting him to change his mind.

Puffing out a frustrated breath, Clara stuck her tongue out at him. Maturity was everything.

‘Why can’t Stella front the programme with someone else? Someone more approachable and more likely to take part? The Prime Minister, for instance, or—I know!—the Secretary General of the United Nations. Now there’s someone who’d make a great presenter. I could give the UN a ring now … I’m sure it would be easier than getting Simon Valentine to agree.’

Her mouth turned down despondently. ‘Honestly, Ted, I’ve tried and tried to talk to him, but he just isn’t interested. You’d think he’d at least consider it after doing that programme on micro-financing, but he won’t even let me explain.’

‘Did you tell him Stella was super-keen to work with him?’

‘I tried, but he doesn’t know who she is.’

‘You’re kidding?’ Ted gaped at her. ‘I don’t see how he could have missed her!’

‘I don’t get the impression Simon Valentine watches much daytime television,’ said Clara, ‘and I’m guessing the Financial Times doesn’t devote much space to footballers’ wives and girlfriends. This isn’t a guy who’s going to have a clue about celebrities.’

Ted grimaced. ‘Better not tell Stella he’s never heard of her or the fat really will be in the fire!’

‘I can’t think why she’s so obsessed with Simon Valentine anyway,’ grumbled Clara. ‘He’s so not her type. She should be going out with someone who’s happy to be photographed all loved-up in Hello!, not a repressed economist. It’s mad!’

Ted perched on the edge of her desk. ‘Roland reckons she wants a relationship with Simon to give her gravitas,’ he confided. ‘Apparently she’s desperate to shake off her WAG image and be taken seriously. Or maybe she just fancies him.’

‘I just don’t get it.’ Clara studied Simon’s photo critically. Even allowing for the vague Christopher Plummer resemblance, it was hard to see what all the fuss was about. Talk about buttoned-up!

‘Did you hear that audience figures for the news have rocketed since he’s been doing those analyses of the economic situation?’ she said, mystified. ‘Women all over the country have been switching on specially in the hope of seeing him, and now they’re all tweeting each other about how sexy they think he is.’ She shook her head at the photograph.

‘They’re calling him the Dow-Jones Darling now,’ said Ted, and Clara snorted.

‘More like the Nikkei Nightmare!’

‘You ought to watch the news. You can’t understand Simon Valentine’s appeal until you’ve seen him in action.’

‘I do watch the news,’ Clara protested. She wasn’t entirely superficial! She caught Ted’s eye. ‘Sometimes, anyway,’ she amended.

‘I made a point of watching the other night before I called him the first time so that I could tell him how brilliant he was—not that I ever got the chance to suck up,’ she remembered glumly. ‘I can see that he knows what he’s talking about, but the whole he’s-so-gorgeous thing has passed me by. He didn’t smile once!’

‘He’s talking about the global recession,’ Ted pointed out. ‘Not exactly laugh-a-minute stuff. You can hardly expect him to be cracking jokes. What do you want him to say? Have you heard the one about the rising unemployment figures?’

‘I’m just saying he doesn’t look as if he’d be much fun.’

‘Simon Valentine appeals to women’s intellect,’ said Ted authoritatively, and Clara rolled her eyes.

‘Like you’d know!’

Ted ignored that. ‘He’s obviously fiercely intelligent, but he explains what’s happening in the financial markets so clearly that you can actually understand it, and that makes you feel clever too. He only got invited to comment that first time because someone else wasn’t available but he’s a natural on camera.’

‘I know. It’s odd, isn’t it? It’s not as if he’s incredibly good-looking or anything.’

‘It’s not about that,’ said Ted with all the authority of a film director. ‘It’s about a complete lack of vanity. He clearly doesn’t care what he looks like, and he’s talking about a subject he’s utterly comfortable with, so he’s relaxed, and the camera loves that. I can see exactly why the BBC snapped up that documentary. There’s a passion about the way he talks about economics … it is kind of sexy.’

‘If you say so,’ said Clara, unconvinced.

‘It was Simon who sold the proposal when Roland pitched it to Channel 16. The suits loved the idea of putting him with Stella.’

Clara could just about get that. Stella Holt was a popular daytime television chat show host, famous for her giggle and revealing dresses. Who better to contrast with her than Simon Valentine, the coolly intelligent financial analyst who had somehow managed to make the global recession a sexy subject? The commissioning editors at Channel 16 had lapped it up, just as Roland Richards had said they would.

You didn’t need to be Simon Valentine to know that the economic outlook was bleak for small television production companies like MediaOchre. They were incredibly lucky to have a programme commissioned at all, as Roland kept reminding them. If it wasn’t for that, the whole company would be folding.

As it was, they had the money—an extraordinarily generous budget under the circumstances. They had Ted as an award-winning producer, and a camera and sound crew lined up. They had the locations chosen and deals set up with airlines and hotels. They had Stella Holt to add the celebrity glamour that would pull in the viewers.

All they needed was Simon Valentine.

As Roland also kept reminding Clara.

‘You’re the production assistant,’ he told her. ‘I don’t care what you do, but get him on board or this whole thing is going to fall apart, and it won’t just be you that’s out of a job. We’ll all be out on the streets!’

So no pressure then.

Remembering, Clara put her head in her hands. ‘There must be some way of persuading Simon to take part. He won’t talk on the phone or respond to emails … I need to talk to him face to face. But how?’

‘Can’t you get contrive to bump into him at a party?’ Ted suggested.

Clara lifted her head to jab a finger at the screen. ‘Does he look like a party animal to you? He doesn’t do anything but work, as far as I can see. They even do those interviews in his office, so I can’t even throw myself at him in the lift at the BBC.’

‘He must go home some time. Hang around outside his office and then follow him.’

‘Excellent idea. I could get myself arrested as a stalker. Although it might come to that. Anyway, he drives to work. It’s very un-ecological of him,’ said Clara disapprovingly.

They brooded on the problem for a while. Ted took the other chair and spun thoughtfully round and round, while Clara Googled in a desultory fashion.

‘We could send a surprise cake to the office,’ Ted suggested at last.

‘And I could deliver it.’ Clara paused with her fingers on the keyboard and considered the idea, her head on one side. ‘I’d be lucky to get past reception, though.’

‘I was thinking more of you jumping out of it,’ said Ted, and she flattened her eyes at him.

‘Oh, yes, he’s bound to take me seriously if I jump out of a cake! Why don’t I turn myself into a call girl and be done with it? And don’t even think about mentioning that idea to Roland!’ she warned, spotting the speculative gleam in Ted’s eyes. ‘He’ll just make me do it.’

She turned back to the computer. ‘Shame he doesn’t appear to have any children. I could inveigle my way in as a governess and charm him into agreeing with my heart-warming song and dance routines.’

‘You’d be better off pretending that you’re setting up a weaving cooperative somewhere in the Third World,’ said Ted, who was used to Clara drifting into Sound of Music fantasies. ‘He’s very hot on credit systems for small organisations that are struggling.’

‘We’re a small organisation that’s struggling,’ Clara pointed out. ‘Or we will be if he doesn’t agree to take part!’ She scrolled down the screen, looking for something, anything, that might help her. ‘Pity he isn’t hotter on self-promotion, but it’s always the same story. It’s about the projects, not about him—oh …’

Ted sat up straighter as she broke off. ‘What?’

‘It says here that Simon Valentine is giving a lecture at the International Institute for Trade and Developing Economies tomorrow night.’ Clara’s eyes skimmed over the announcement. ‘There’s bound to be drinks or something afterwards. If I can blag my way in, I might be able to corner him for a while. I’d have to miss my Zumba class, mind.’

‘Better than losing your job.’ Ted sprang up, newly invigorated. ‘It’s a brilliant idea, Clara. Wear your shortest skirt and show off your legs. Times are too desperate to be PC.’

Clara sniffed. ‘I thought I’d dazzle him with my intellect,’ she said, and Ted grinned as he patted her on the shoulder.

‘I’d stick to my legs if I were you. I think they’re more likely to impress Simon Valentine.’

Clara tugged surreptitiously at her skirt. She wished now that she had worn something a little more demure. Surrounded by a sea of suits in varying shades of black and grey, she felt like a streetlamp left on during the day in a fuchsia-pink mini-dress and purple suede killer heels. The other members of the audience had eyed her askance as she edged along the row and collapsed into a spare seat at the back of the room. On one side of her a brisk-looking woman in a daringly beige trouser suit bristled with disapproval. On the other, a corpulent executive leered at her legs until Simon Valentine began to speak.

There had been no problem about talking her way in without a ticket—Clara suspected the mini-dress had helped there, at least—but once inside it was clear that she was totally out of place. She fixed her attention on Simon, who was standing behind a lectern and explaining some complicated-looking PowerPoint presentation in a crisp, erudite way that appeared to have the audience absorbed.

It was all way over Clara’s head. She recognised the odd word, but that was about it. Every now and then a ripple of laughter passed over the room, although Clara had no idea what had been so funny. She picked up the occasional word: percentages and forecasts, public sector debt and private equity. Something called quantitative easing.

Hilarious.

Abandoning her attempt to follow the lecture, Clara planned her strategy for afterwards instead. Somehow she would have to manoeuvre him into a quiet corner and dazzle him with her wit and charm before casually slipping the programme into the conversation.

Or she could go with Ted’s suggestion and flash her legs at him.

Clara wasn’t mad about that idea. On the other hand, it might be more effective than relying on wit and charm, and it would be worth it if she could stroll into the office the next day. Oh, yeah, she would say casually to Roland. Simon’s on board.

Roland would be over the moon. He would offer her an assistant producer role straight away, and then, after a few thought-provoking documentaries, she could make the move into drama. Clara hugged the thought to herself. She would spend the rest of her career making spell-binding programmes and everyone would take her seriously at last.

A storm of applause woke Clara out of her dream.

OK, maybe an entire high-flying career was a lot to get out of one conversation, but she was an optimist. Climb every mountain, and all that. It could happen and, at the very least, convincing Simon Valentine to take part would save her job and mean that Ted could stay in his flat.

There was the usual scrum to get out of the room to the drinks reception afterwards. The International Institute for Trade and Developing Economies was as stuffy as its name suggested. It was an imposing enough building, if you liked that kind of thing, with elaborately carved plaster ceilings, portraits of stern Edwardian economists lining the walls, and a grand staircase that Clara longed to dance down. It was just begging for a sparkly dress and a Ginger Rogers impersonation.

The reception was held in the library and by the time Clara got in there the glittering chandeliers were ringing with the rising babble of conversation. Grabbing a glass of white wine, she skulked around the edges of the crowd, trying to look as if she understood what everyone was talking about. She recognized several famous journalists and politicians, and the air was thick with talk of monetary policy frameworks, asset bubbles and exchange rate policies.

Oh, dear, if only she was a bit more knowledgeable. She would never be able to dazzle Simon Valentine at this rate. Clara was careful to avoid eye contact with anyone in case they asked her what she thought about the credit crisis or interest rate cuts. She didn’t want to be exposed as the imposter that she was.

The atmosphere was so intimidating that Clara was tempted to turn tail and go home before she was outed as utterly ignorant, but this might be her only chance to talk to Simon Valentine face to face. She couldn’t go until she had at least tried. It would be too shaming to go into work the next day and admit that she’d lost her nerve.

Humming under her breath to bolster her confidence, Clara scanned the crowds for her quarry and spotted him at last, looking so austere in a grey suit that everyone else seemed positively jolly in comparison. Several women in monochrome suits of various shades were clustered around him, nodding fervently at everything he said. Those must be his groupies, thought Clara disparagingly, unable to see what it was about Simon Valentine that made obviously intelligent women fawn over him.

Not that he seemed to be enjoying the experience, she had to concede. He had a definite air of being at bay, and she saw him steal surreptitious glances at his watch.

Seriously, the guy needed to relax a bit, Clara decided. He was holding a glass but not drinking from it and, as she watched, he put it back on a passing tray, offered a smile so brief it was barely more than a grimace to his disappointed fans and started to make his way out of the crush.

Terrified that he was leaving already, Clara drained her second glass for courage and headed after him. She couldn’t let him get away without at least trying to buttonhole him.

Pushing her way through the crowds, she followed him out into the cavernous entrance hall in time to see him striding purposefully towards the cloakrooms. He was going to get his coat and leave, and her chance would be gone. She would have sat through a lecture on economics for nothing!

It was now or never.

Her heels clicked on the marble floor as she hurried after him. ‘Dr Valentine?’ she called breathlessly.

Simon bit down on an expletive. His lecture had gone very well, but he would much prefer to have left immediately afterwards. Instead, he’d had to stand around and make small talk. He’d barely stepped into the library when a whole gaggle of women had descended on him. Ever since he had appeared on the news explaining the blindingly obvious about the financial situation, he had become a reluctant celebrity.

At first it had seemed an excellent idea. His firm was all for it, and Simon himself believed it was important for people to understand the economic realities of life. He had no problem with that, and the opportunity to bring new thinking about micro financing to global attention was too good to miss. He was delighted that the ensuing documentary had had such an impact, but had been totally unprepared for the effect of his television appearances on female viewers.

It was all very embarrassing, in fact, and the intent way some women had taken to hanging on his every word made him deeply uncomfortable. If they were that interested in economics, why didn’t they go away and read his articles instead?

And now, just when he’d managed to escape for a few minutes’ quiet, here was another one.

For a moment Simon considered pretending that he hadn’t heard her, but some of his so-called fans could be annoyingly persistent, and he wouldn’t put it past some of them to pursue him right into the Gents. So he paused, clenched his jaw, and fixed on his least welcoming expression.

But when he turned, the young woman coming after him didn’t look at all like one of his normal fans, most of whom tended to hide their silliness at being fans in the first place beneath a veneer of seriousness. There was nothing serious about this girl.

His first impression was of vivid colour, his second of a spectacular pair of legs. In spite of himself, Simon blinked. He doubted very much that the Institute had ever seen a skirt that short before, or shoes that frivolous.

He allowed himself a moment to appreciate the legs before he made himself look away from them. Just because Astrid had left, he didn’t have to start leering at the first pair of decent legs to come his way.

‘Yes?’ he said uninvitingly.

She offered him a friendly smile. ‘I just wanted to say that I enjoyed your talk very much,’ she said, still breathless from the effort of hurrying after him in those absurd shoes. ‘I thought you made some excellent points.’

Simon eyed her suspiciously. ‘Oh? Which particular points?’ he said. Maybe it was unfair to put her on the spot, but he didn’t feel like being helpful.

‘All of them,’ she said firmly, only to falter as her gaze met his. She had an extraordinarily transparent expression, and Simon could see her realising that as an answer it was less than impressive and dredging up something she remembered from the lecture.

Which turned out to be not very much.

‘What you said about qualitative easing was particularly interesting,’ she offered with an ingenuous smile.

‘Really? That’s strange, as I was talking about quantitative easing.’

‘That too,’ she said.

He had to give her points for trying. Most of his ‘fans’ did their homework in an attempt to impress him when they met. This one clearly hadn’t bothered.

‘You’re interested in the banks’ asset policies?’

‘Fascinated,’ she said, clearly lying, but meeting his eyes with such limpid innocence that Simon felt an unfamiliar tugging sensation at the corner of his mouth. It took a moment before he recognized it as amusement, and he pressed his lips together before he actually smiled.

Now that he looked at her properly, he could see that she wasn’t particularly pretty. Once you got past the animated expression, her features were really very ordinary, with ordinary brown hair falling in a very ordinary style to her shoulders. And yet she seemed to shimmer with a kind of suppressed energy, as if she were about to break into a run or fling her arms around, that made her not ordinary at all.

She made Simon feel vaguely unsettled, and that wasn’t a feeling he liked.

‘Were you even at my lecture?’ he demanded.

‘I sat through every riveting minute of it,’ she assured him.

‘And how much did you understand?’

He saw a brief struggle with her conscience cross her face before she opted, wisely, for honesty. ‘Well, not everything … that is, not a lot … in fact, none of it, but I do admire you a lot, obviously.’ She cleared her throat. ‘The truth is, I don’t know anything about economics. I’m here because I really need to talk to you.’

‘I’m afraid I only talk about economics, so if you don’t know anything about the subject it’s likely to be a very short conversation,’ said Simon curtly and made to turn away but she clutched at his arm.

‘I won’t keep you a minute, I promise,’ she said and plunged into a prepared speech before he could shake his arm from her grasp. ‘My name’s Clara Sterne, and I—’

But she had already said enough. Simon’s eyes narrowed. ‘As in the Clara Sterne who has been ringing and emailing me and apparently doesn’t understand the meaning of the word no?’

‘Oh, you recognize my name? Good,’ said Clara brightly.

Simon’s mouth tightened. ‘Spare your breath!’ he said, flinging up a hand as she opened her mouth to go on. ‘No, I will not participate in your ridiculous television programme. Once and for all … No!’

‘But you haven’t even given me a chance to explain about the programme,’ she protested. ‘It’s not ridiculous at all. We want it to be a serious examination of the romance industry.’

‘Clara, in case you haven’t noticed, there’s a global recession going on. I think there are more serious issues to examine than romance, even if such a thing existed.’

Clara pounced on that. ‘So you don’t think romance exists?’

She might as well have asked him whether he believed in the Jolly Green Giant. ‘Of course I don’t,’ he said. ‘It’s clearly an artificial construct dreamed up by marketing teams.’

‘Then that’s all we want you to say on the programme! That’s the whole point, in fact. It’ll be a serious discussion, with you and your co-presenter putting different sides of the argument.’

‘A serious discussion? I seem to recall you told me the other presenter was a footballer’s wife who hosts a daytime chat show!’

‘Ex-wife,’ Clara corrected him. ‘We think the contrast between the two of you will be very effective.’

She had an extraordinarily mobile face. Her eyes as she leant eagerly towards him were an undistinguished brown, but her expression was so bright that Simon was momentarily snared, like the proverbial rabbit in the headlights. Irritated by the image, he still had to make a physical effort to jerk himself free.

‘I don’t care how “effective” the contrast would be,’ he said sharply. ‘It’s not going to happen.’

Clara regarded him in dismay. How could she persuade him if he wouldn’t even listen to her? ‘I’d have thought you would be pleased at the chance to convince people about your point of view,’ she said. ‘Your last documentary was really important, and we want this one to be the same.’

‘My last documentary was about the alleviation of poverty! I hope you’re not going to try and convince me the importance of that can be compared to romance?’

Uh-oh. Wrong track. Clara did some swift back-pedalling. ‘No, of course not,’ she said quickly. ‘But we could offer the opportunity to do a follow-up programme on the projects you mentioned in your film,’ she offered, seized by inspiration, and mentally crossing her fingers that Roland would agree. ‘It would be great publicity for you.’

But that was the wrong thing to say too. ‘I’m not interested in publicity,’ said Simon quellingly. ‘I’m interested in making systems work so that the people who need help get it. It’s nothing—’

He broke off, obviously catching sight of someone over Clara’s shoulder, and stiffened.

Curious, she turned to see a couple coming towards them. The woman was coolly elegant, her companion dark and Mediterranean-looking and seriously hot.

There was an awkward pause, then the woman said, ‘Hello, Simon.’

‘Astrid.’ Simon inclined his head in curt acknowledgement, his voice clipped.

Clara looked from one to the other with interest. There was something going on here. Astrid was rather lovely, Clara thought enviously, with perfect skin, perfect bone structure and a perfect shining curtain of silvery-blonde hair.

And no prizes for guessing Simon thought so too. He was looking wooden but Clara prided herself on reading body language and, unless she was much mistaken, Astrid was an ex of some kind.

‘You haven’t met Paolo before.’ Astrid sounded composed enough, but there was a telltale flush along her cheekbones as she introduced the two men, who eyed each other with undisguised hostility. ‘Paolo Sparchetti, Simon Valentine.’

‘Ciao,’ drawled Paolo, and put a possessive arm around Astrid’s waist.

Lucky Astrid, was all Clara could think. Paolo was sulkily handsome, with a wide sensuous mouth and just the right degree of stubble to make him look sexily dishevelled. Now if he was commenting on the stock markets, she might take an interest in the economy. It was bizarre to think that Simon was the one with all the fans.

Simon was definitely jealous. He barely managed a jerk of his head to acknowledge the introduction.

Ver-rr-ry interesting, thought Clara.

It was hard to imagine two men more different. Simon was all buttoned up and conventional, while Paolo was smouldering passion in an open-necked shirt and a designer jacket, with a man purse slung over his shoulder. Clara was prepared to bet her life on the fact that Simon would die rather than carry a handbag.

There was another taut silence.

Clara looked from one to the other, intrigued by the fact that Astrid seemed torn. Her body seemed to be attuned to Paolo’s—and, frankly, Clara didn’t blame it—but her mind was apparently focused on Simon’s reaction.

Hmm. Clara scented an opportunity. Somehow she needed to get Simon and Astrid back together, which would make Simon so grateful that he would offer her, Clara, anything she wanted in return for restoring his lost love to him. At which point she would mention MediaOchre’s pressing need for him to appear in the programme.

Of course I’ll do it, he would say. Anything for you, Clara.

Well, it was worth a shot.

CHAPTER TWO

CLARA considered her options. She could try and draw Paolo’s attention away from Astrid, but that was frankly unlikely. Clara could scrub up well enough when she tried, but she had none of Astrid’s cool beauty.

The alternative was to make Astrid jealous of Simon.

It shouldn’t be too hard, Clara decided. A look, a hint, a suggestion that Simon had found someone else ought to be enough.

All she had to do was pretend to be in love with Simon.

And how hard could that be?

Years earlier, when she had still been dreaming of making it to Broadway, Clara had done a drama course. Her acting career had been humiliatingly short, but she could still pull out the stops when she tried.

Putting on a bright smile, she stepped just a little closer to Simon and stuck out her hand to Astrid. ‘Hello, I’m Clara.’

It was pretty clear that Astrid hadn’t registered Clara’s presence up to that point. Clara wasn’t offended. If she had Paolo on her arm, she wouldn’t notice anyone else either, and it wasn’t as if Clara was a likely rival for his interest, more was the pity.

Still, Astrid’s perfect brows drew together as she took in Clara’s appearance, and when her perfect green eyes reached the hem of Clara’s mini-dress, the perfect mouth definitely tightened.

‘Hello,’ she said with marked coolness.

Clara pretended not to notice. ‘Simon was brilliant, wasn’t he?’ She threw Simon an adoring look.

The feedback at the end of her drama course had been succinct: stick to dancing. If only her tutors could see her now! They might change their minds about her acting abilities. She deserved a gleaming statuette at least for convincing Astrid that she was starstruck by Simon Valentine, Clara decided.

‘I’ve just felt so inspired about the economy since meeting Simon,’ she cooed. ‘I’ve learnt so much, haven’t you?’

Simon unfolded his lips. ‘Astrid is a hedge fund manager.’

Clara didn’t have a clue what a hedge fund manager was, but she gathered from Simon’s tone and Astrid’s expression that there was little the other woman had to learn about economics.

‘How exciting,’ she said, bestowing a kind smile on Astrid. ‘Did you enjoy Simon’s lecture anyway?’

‘Of course,’ said Astrid. She glanced from Clara to Simon. ‘I’ve heard him talk before, obviously.’

Obviously.

‘It’s still a thrill for me every time.’ Clara thought that was a clever touch, hinting that she had sat through hours of economic lectures just for the pleasure of listening to Simon’s voice. Talk about devoted!

Astrid hesitated. ‘I just thought it would be a good idea for you and Paolo to meet, Simon,’ she said, effectively cutting Clara out of the conversation.

It was Clara’s cue to make an excuse and leave, but instead she put a hand on Simon’s arm and beamed at the other two, not budging. ‘It’s lovely to meet you,’ she assured them, very aware of Simon, who had gone rigid at her touch.

Baulked of the tête-à-tête she so plainly desired, Astrid had to concede defeat. ‘Well, I’ll see you in the office tomorrow,’ she said to Simon, pointedly ignoring Clara. ‘Paolo, we’d better go.’

‘Whenever you want, cara.’ The smirk Paolo sent Simon was a classic, and Simon glowered after the Italian as he sauntered off with Astrid.

‘Did you see that?’ he demanded. ‘She’s actually with a man who carries a handbag!’

She had got that right, anyway. ‘I think you’ll find they’re called carry-alls,’ said Clara.

‘It looked like a handbag to me,’ snarled Simon. Then he remembered who he was talking to, and rounded on her.

‘And what did you think you were doing barging in on a private conversation, anyway?’

The brown eyes looked guilelessly back at him. ‘I thought you’d be glad of my help.’

‘Help?’ He glowered at her. ‘What for?’

‘You want Astrid back, don’t you?’

‘What?’ Simon was completely thrown. ‘How did you know that?’ he asked involuntarily and then glowered some more, furious with himself for such a revealing remark.

‘Well, you could have hung a sign saying “jealous loser” round your neck,’ said Clara, evidently quite undaunted by his thunderous expression, ‘but otherwise it’s hard to see how you could have made it more obvious!’

Feeling his mouth fall open in a gape, Simon snapped it shut. Who was this girl? She had some nerve, he had to give her that! Nobody else he knew—apart from his mother, perhaps—would think of talking to him that way.

‘Astrid didn’t like me being with you, you know,’ she went on knowledgeably.

‘You’re not with me!’

‘But she doesn’t know that, does she?’

Simon was beginning to wonder if he was having a particularly vivid and unsettling dream. His life was black and white and firmly under control. He didn’t talk about relationships. He didn’t let himself get trapped into bizarre conversations with young women who wore vibrant colours and inappropriately short skirts and who appeared to have no compunction about barging in on other people’s conversations or offering unsolicited advice.

‘Any fool can see why Astrid is with Paolo—I mean, he’s seriously hot—but she’s clearly still got a thing about you.’ Clara couldn’t quite manage to keep the bafflement from her voice, Simon noted. ‘Instead of you glaring at Paolo, you need to make her jealous.’

‘Jealous?’ echoed Simon, even as he wondered why he was even having this conversation.

Clara nodded encouragingly. ‘Make her wonder what she’s missing,’ she said.

‘And this is any of your business because …?’

‘Like I say, I can help you. I don’t mind hanging around and simpering at you whenever you’re likely to meet Astrid. She won’t like the idea that you’re with me at all, and if you can’t make the most of the situation when she tells you how jealous she is, I wash my hands of you.’

Unbelievable. What kind of world was Clara Sterne living in? Simon regarded her with his most sardonic expression.

‘And in return for this sacrifice on your part? Or can I guess?’

‘Well, you’re not stupid,’ said Clara, ‘so yes, you probably can. All you’d have to do in return is present a one-hour film.’ She looked at him hopefully. ‘Well? Do we have a deal?’

She didn’t seriously expect him to agree to that nonsense, did she? Ruin his reputation as a serious economist by taking part in some sentimental twaddle?

‘Not exactly,’ said Simon, ‘but I do have a deal to offer you.’

He crooked a finger in conspiratorial fashion and her face lit up. ‘Really?’ she said, leaning closer. Simon got a whiff of a fresh citrusy scent.

‘Really,’ he said.

‘What’s the deal?’

‘It’s a very simple one. You go away and leave me alone, and I won’t call Security to throw you out. How’s that for an offer?’

Clara recoiled in disappointment. ‘Oh, but please …’

Unmoved by the pleading brown eyes, Simon looked at his watch. ‘I’ll count to ten, then I’m calling Security.’

‘All right, I’m going!’ she said hastily. Digging in her purse, she produced a business card and pushed it into his hand. ‘But here are my contact details, just in case you change your mind.’

Shaking his head with a mixture of exasperation and reluctant admiration at her persistence, Simon permitted himself a last look at her legs as she left, clearly disappointed but still with plenty of verve to the swing of her hips. As the click of those precipitous heels faded and she disappeared around the corner, he found that he was turning her card round and round between his fingers, and he stopped himself irritably.

Clara Sterne, Production Assistant, MediaOchre Productions, the card read. Who in God’s name would want to have anything to do with a company that called itself MediaOchre? The name was either prescient or indicated an ominous taste for puns. Simon had no intention of getting involved either way.

Unable to spot a bin, he shoved the card in his jacket pocket. He would dispose of it later, as he certainly wouldn’t be needing it. That was the last he would see of Clara Sterne.

Simon drummed his fingers on his desk. When they were going out, it had been very convenient that Astrid worked in the same office, but now it felt … well, awkward.

Simon didn’t like feeling awkward. He had always liked the fact that it had been so comfortable being with Astrid. She didn’t make scenes or get all emotional, and she never got personal in the office.

So why she wanted to spoil it all by throwing everything up for a pretty Italian, Simon couldn’t begin to fathom. He thought she had been happy with him. She had said she had been happy. And then one day it had been all about being swept off her feet and wanting ‘passion’ and ‘romance’.

Madness.

Astrid had put her head round his door earlier and asked if she could have a word. He’d been glad to see her. If they could have sat down together and chatted about financial sustainability for NGOs or risk analysis, he was sure she would have remembered how much better off she was with him. It wasn’t as if she could have a meaningful conversation with a man who carried a handbag, after all. Surely she would get bored with Paolo soon?

Not that he was jealous, whatever Clara Sterne had had to say about it. That was nonsense. He didn’t get jealous. That wasn’t how he and Astrid had operated, and he wasn’t about to start now.

Simon had every faith that Astrid would come to her senses but, apparently, it wasn’t yet. She had no time for economic policy nowadays, and was determined to talk about bloody Paolo instead. How he made her feel. How guilty she then felt about Simon. Feelings, feelings, feelings … Simon couldn’t understand it. It was so unlike her.

Now Astrid was pacing. That was another thing she had never used to do.

‘Who was that you were with last night?’ she asked abruptly.

‘Last night?’

‘That girl. Clara. I got the impression she was with you.’

Simon opened his mouth to deny any acquaintance with Clara Sterne, but the words died on his tongue as her words came back to him.

She’s clearly still got a thing about you. Instead of glaring at Paolo, you need to make her jealous.

Was it possible that Clara was right?

Simon was unsettled by how clearly he could remember her. Clara wasn’t a beautiful woman like Astrid, of course, but there had been a sort of quirky appeal to her undistinguished features, he had to admit. Something to do with the warm brown eyes, perhaps, or that mouth that seemed permanently tilted at the corners.

Or maybe those spectacular legs.

Simon was prepared to admit to a sneaking admiration for her daring, too, if he were honest, although he had no intention of changing his mind.

In his jacket pocket he’d found her card, which he’d forgotten to put in the bin. Now he turned it on the desk, frowning slightly.

‘How long have you known her?’

To his relief, Astrid stopped pacing and sat down on the other side of his desk. A tiny crease had appeared between her immaculately groomed brows.

‘Not long.’ Simon shifted, uncomfortably aware that he wasn’t being entirely truthful.

‘It’s just that I worry about you,’ Astrid said unexpectedly. ‘I know we’re not together any more, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you, and I’d hate it if you were to do anything foolish.’

Simon paused in the middle of turning the card on its side. ‘Foolish?’ Pretty rich coming from someone who had thrown over a perfectly satisfactory relationship for a handbag-carrying Italian!

‘Clara’s very …’ Astrid paused delicately ‘… colourful, but she’s hardly your type, Simon. And that dress! Totally inappropriate, I thought.’

It had been, but Simon couldn’t help remembering how good Clara’s legs had looked in it.

‘I know you’re too intelligent to be taken in by a girl in a miniskirt,’ Astrid went on, ‘but I hope you’ll be careful.’

‘I’m always careful,’ said Simon.

It was true. He liked his life firmly under control. Risk analysis was his speciality. He didn’t do reckless or spontaneous. And he certainly didn’t do foolish. He’d seen just how disastrous recklessness and foolishness could be, and neither were mistakes he would be making.

‘I know.’ Astrid’s expression softened. ‘Look, it’s hard to talk about these things in the office. Why don’t we meet for a drink later?’ Then, just when he was congratulating himself on being right about her returning to her senses, she spoiled things by adding, ‘I’d really like you to get to know Paolo.’

So much for a quiet drink sorting things out. Simon wanted to be with Astrid, but he had no desire to get to know any more about Paolo. As far as he was concerned, he already knew more than enough.

‘I’m sorry, Astrid,’ he said, ‘but my mother is coming to town this evening, and I promised to take her out to dinner. I’m expecting her any minute, in fact. Another time, perhaps.’

Preferably when Paolo was unavailable.

As if on cue, his PA buzzed him from her office. Not sorry for the distraction, Simon flipped the switch. ‘Yes, Molly?’

‘I’ve just had a call from Reception,’ said Molly. ‘Your mother’s there. She’s fine, but there’s been some kind of incident. Could you go down?’

When the lift doors opened, Simon spotted his mother straight away. She was at the centre of a cluster of people on the far side of the atrium, but when she saw him she hurried over to meet him. ‘Thank goodness you’re here!’

Simon’s brows snapped together at the sight of her flustered appearance. Frances Valentine was still an attractive woman, but now her highlighted blonde hair was dishevelled, and there were spots of colour in her cheeks. ‘What on earth has happened?’

‘I’ve been mugged!’ she announced with her usual flair for the dramatic.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked in quick concern.

‘I’m fine. It’s Clara I’m worried about.’

‘Clara?’

‘She saw what happened, and tackled the mugger,’ Frances said admiringly, tugging him over to a bedraggled figure sitting on one of the low leather sofas, nursing one arm. ‘Wasn’t it brave of her?’

With a sinking sense of inevitability, Simon recognized the long legs first. His gaze travelled up over the torn tights, mud-splattered skirt and top to a face that was already unsettlingly familiar. Above the colourfully striped scarf that was wound several times around her neck, Clara Sterne’s face was paler than the night before but, even shaken, she managed to look more vivid than the other women clucking over her and, as her brown eyes widened at the sight of him, he felt an odd little zing pass through him.

‘You’re Frances’s son?’ she exclaimed.

‘You know each other?’ his mother said in delight.

‘No,’ said Simon.

Just as Clara said, ‘Yes.’

How did a woman as warm and friendly as Frances have a son as stiff as Simon Valentine? Clara wondered. She hadn’t been expecting to see him just then, and surprise had sent her heart jumping into her throat at the sight of him.

At least she hoped it was surprise.

He looked as disapproving as ever, as if she had thrown herself into that puddle and torn her tights and hurt her wrist just to annoy him. She had wanted to see him, of course, but not like this.

‘What happened?’ he asked his mother.

Frances launched into her story. ‘I was just crossing the road when I felt this thump on my shoulder and this awful oik grabbed my bag.’ She shuddered. ‘I got such a fright! It’s my favourite bag too. Do you remember I bought it in Venice last year?’

Judging by Simon’s expression, he knew nothing about his mother’s handbags and cared less. Clara saw him keeping a visible rein on his impatience.

‘How did Clara get involved?’

‘She saw what was happening.’ Frances sat down next to Clara and patted her knee. ‘Lots of other people must have seen too, but no one else moved. Clara took off after him straight away, and she got hold of my bag, but they had a bit of a tussle and he pushed her to the ground before he ran off.’

Drawing breath, she looked up at her son. ‘I’m very much afraid she may have broken her wrist, but she says there’s no need to call an ambulance. You try and talk some sense into her, Simon.’

‘There’s no need, really.’ Clara managed to get a word in at last. ‘I’m perfectly all right. I can walk.’

‘You’re not all right! Look at you. You’ve ruined your tights, and I can tell your wrist is hurting.’

It was. When the mugger had shoved her, Clara had lost her balance and her wrist had taken the whole weight of her body as she fell. But her legs were all right, thank goodness, and she hardly counted as an emergency.

‘I’ll get a taxi,’ she compromised.

‘You’ll do no such thing!’ said Frances roundly. ‘Simon has a car. You’ll take her to hospital, won’t you, darling?’

Clara had never seen anyone look less like a darling than Simon Valentine right then. It was almost worth a sore wrist and scraped knees to see the expression on his face, where impatience, frustration and reluctance warred with the mixture of exasperation and affection he obviously felt for his mother.

‘Of course,’ he said after a moment.

‘Really, it’s not necessary …’

‘Nonsense!’ said Frances. ‘You’re a heroine, and so I shall tell the police.’

‘All right.’ Rather to Clara’s relief, Simon interrupted his mother’s account of her heroics and took charge. Her wrist was getting more painful by the minute, and she was glad to be able to sit numbly while he despatched the cluster of receptionists who had been clucking ineffectually and arranged for his mother to be taken to his home in a taxi.

Only then did he turn his attention to Clara.

‘There’s no need to look at me like that,’ she said as she got stiffly to her feet.

‘Like what?’

‘Like you think I arranged the mugging on purpose.’

‘It crossed my mind.’ Simon pushed the button for the lift to take them down to the basement car park. ‘If you were desperate enough to sit through a lecture on monetary policy, who knows what you’d be prepared to do.’

‘I was desperate to talk to you, but not quite desperate enough to tackle a mugger,’ said Clara. She didn’t add that Roland would certainly have pushed her into it if he thought it would get results.

As it appeared to have done. She mustn’t waste this opportunity, she told herself, but her knees were stinging where she had grazed them and the pain in her wrist made it hard to concentrate.

Simon looked at her sideways as the lift doors slid open and they stepped inside.

‘And yet you did it anyway. It was a dangerous thing to do. What if the mugger had been armed?’

‘I didn’t think,’ Clara confessed, cradling her forearm. ‘I saw your mum stagger, and then this young guy snatched her bag. It just made me mad. She looked so shocked that I ran after him and grabbed the bag back.’

She was very aware of him in the close confines of the lift. He seemed bigger than he had the night before. Stronger and more solid. More male. More overwhelming, and she found herself babbling.

‘It would have been fine if he’d just let me take the bag back,’ she rattled on. ‘I suppose that was too much to hope after he’d gone to all the trouble of stealing it. Anyway, he turned round and shoved me, and the next thing I was crashing into a puddle.’

She grimaced down at herself. Her favourite skirt was ruined. ‘I kept hold of the bag, though, and everyone was looking by then, so I think he just cut his losses and ran off. Your mother had caught up with us by then, so I was able to give her the bag back. She insisted that we come in here, but I honestly didn’t know that you were her son!’

‘I believe you,’ said Simon with a dry glance. The lift doors opened, and they stepped out into the garage. ‘But I hope you’re not going to ask me to believe that it was coincidence that you were outside the building?’ he asked, leading the way to a sleek silver car.

‘No.’ Clara didn’t see any point in denying it. ‘I was hoping to catch you when you left work. I thought you might be in a better mood today.’

Simon jabbed the key in the direction of the car to unlock it. ‘I was in a perfectly good mood yesterday!’ he said as the lights flashed obediently. ‘Just as I’m in a perfectly good mood today,’ he added through clenched teeth, opening the passenger door for her with pointed courtesy.

‘Gosh, I hope I never meet you in a bad mood,’ said Clara.

There was a dangerous pause, and then Simon shut the door on her with a careful lack of emphasis.

‘I’m grateful to you for going to my mother’s rescue,’ he said stiffly when he got behind the wheel and started the engine, ‘but if you’re thinking of using this situation to press your case about this wretched programme of yours, please don’t bother. I’m not changing my mind.’

Clara heaved a martyred sigh. ‘All right. My wrist is too sore to grovel right now, anyway.’ She slid him a glance under her lashes. ‘I guess I’ll just have to resign myself to pain and the prospect of losing my job.’

‘You know, there is such a thing as employment law,’ said Simon, unimpressed. ‘They can’t sack you because you had an accident and hurt your wrist.’

‘No, but they can for failing to do your job, which in my case was to get you to agree to present the programme.’

‘Emotional blackmail.’ Simon put the car into gear and drove up the ramp and out into the dark January evening. ‘The perfect end to a perfect day.’

‘You’re right.’ Emotional blackmail was all she had left. ‘It’s not your problem if my career is over, or if I can’t pay my rent and have to go back to live with my parents and admit I’m a total failure.’

Simon spared her a brief glance. ‘Save it,’ he advised. ‘If you’ve done your research, you’ll know that I’m completely heartless.’

‘I have, and you’re not,’ said Clara. ‘I know how many times you’ve volunteered for emergency relief projects after disasters. A heartless person doesn’t do that.’

‘Don’t make me into a hero,’ he said curtly. ‘I’m not getting my hands dirty. I just make sure the money gets to those who need it.’

Quite a big ‘just’, Clara would have thought. Simon might not be pulling people out of the rubble or a doctor saving lives, but he regularly left his comfortable life in London to spend several weeks in extremely difficult conditions. Nothing happened without money, and relief efforts depended on financial managers like him to channel the funds where they were most needed and stop them being siphoned off by fraud and corruption.

Simon was clearly anxious to change the subject. ‘Besides,’ he said, cutting across her thoughts, ‘it’s totally unreasonable for anyone’s job to depend on one person.’

‘Tell that to my boss,’ said Clara glumly.

‘They must be able to find someone else. It’s not even as if I’m a professional broadcaster.’

‘It has to be you.’ Faced with his intransigence, she had nothing to lose, Clara decided. She might as well be straight. ‘The budget is based on your participation, and Stella Holt won’t take part unless you do. The whole thing falls apart without you,’ she told him. ‘And so does MediaOchre. There are only three of us as it is. That’s why I’ve been so persistent.’

‘Basing the entire future of a company on one individual is an extremely risky economic strategy,’ said Simon severely.

‘I suppose so, but you have to take a risk every now and then, don’t you?’

She knew immediately she had said the wrong thing. Simon’s expression didn’t change, but she felt him withdraw, like a snail shrinking back into its shell, and his voice was distant. ‘Not in my experience,’ he said.

There was a pause. ‘Well, you can’t say I haven’t tried,’ she said after a moment.

‘No,’ said Simon, ‘I can’t say that.’

A dreary drizzle misted the windscreen, and the streetlamps cast a fuzzy orange glow over the commuters hurrying for the tube, collars turned up against the cold and the damp.

How was she going to break it to Ted and Roland? Clara’s heart sank. She had failed them both. Now she could wave goodbye to her shiny new career and her hopes of becoming a producer. Just when she had filled the aching gap in her life left by Matt and found something she really wanted to do too.

Where was Julie Andrews when she needed her? As so often, Clara opted for frivolity when things looked like getting desperate. It was better than the alternative, which was crying hopelessly and which never really helped anyway. That was a lesson she had learnt the hard way in the weeks and months after Matt had left.

Well, she would just have to cheer herself up. Clara hummed a few bars of My Favourite Things under her breath while Simon negotiated an awkward junction.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Singing to myself.’

‘What on earth for?’

‘To make myself feel better.’ It seemed obvious to Clara.

‘I thought that’s why I was taking you to hospital.’

‘Music is the best medicine,’ she said. ‘Musicals taught me that.’

She might as well have claimed to have learned it from aliens. ‘Musicals?’ asked Simon as if he had never heard the word.

‘Shows where the actors sing and dance around,’ said Clara helpfully. ‘And some of the greatest movies ever made. Take The Sound of Music. You must have seen that?’

‘I’ve heard of it.’ He eased into a gap between a bus and a taxi.

‘I’ll bet you know most of the songs.’ She hummed the tune again. ‘Is it ringing any bells?’

Simon glanced at her, shook his head slightly, and turned his attention back to the traffic. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, Clara.’

She gaped at him, astounded by his ignorance. This was probably how he felt about anyone who didn’t know all about quantitative easing and interest rate policies.

‘It’s a classic song,’ she told him. ‘And, what’s more, it really does work. When things go wrong—like you refusing to take part in the programme and ruining my career, for instance—all I have to do is sing a bit and I instantly feel better.’

It had worked when she missed Matt. Most of the time.

‘Who needs a doctor when you’ve got The Sound of Music?’ she said cheerfully, and Simon shook his head in disbelief.

‘I think I’d still take my chances at the hospital if I were you.’

At least three of the nurses in the A and E department recognized Simon, and there was a rather unseemly tussle as to who would help him. Initially triumphant at securing the task of dealing with Clara, the staff nurse was positively sulky when she realised that Simon planned to wait outside, and that the other two were left to fuss around him.

Not that Simon even seemed to realise that he was getting special treatment. ‘I’ll be here when you’re ready,’ he said to Clara. Taking a seat on one of the hard plastic chairs, he unfolded the Financial Times and proceeded to ignore everyone else.

By the time she emerged with a plaster cast up to her elbow and her arm in a sling, Clara was tired and sore and feeling faintly sick. She wanted Matt. Usually she was very good at persuading herself that she was fine, but at times like this, when her defences were down and she just needed him to put his arms round her and tell her that everything would be all right, his absence sharpened from a dull ache to a spearing pain.

Matt wasn’t there for her any more. There was no one there for her.

Except Simon Valentine, who was sitting exactly where she had left him, and the rush of relief she felt at the sight of him made her screw up her face in case she burst into tears or did something equally humiliating.

‘The sister said your wrist is broken,’ he said, folding his newspaper and getting to his feet as she appeared. ‘I’m sorry, it must be very painful.’

Clara put on a bright smile. She wasn’t going to be a cry-baby in front of Simon Valentine.

‘It’s not too bad.’ She moved her arm in its sling gingerly. ‘I have to come back to the fracture clinic in a week, and they’ll put a lightweight cast on it then.’

‘My mother rang while you were being X-rayed,’ he told her. ‘It seems she picked up your bag when you dropped it to go after that mugger.’

Clara clapped her good hand to her head. ‘Thank goodness for that! I forgot all about it in all the kerfuffle.’

‘We’ll go and pick it up, and then I’ll take you home.’

‘Honestly, I’m fine,’ she said quickly. ‘I can get a cab.’

‘You might as well resign yourself,’ he said. ‘My life wouldn’t be worth living if my mother got wind of the fact that I let you go home in a taxi!’

His suit was still immaculate, and she was horribly aware all at once of her scuffed knees and mud-splattered clothes where she had fallen. His hand was strong and steadying through her jacket as he took her good arm and steered her out through the doors to the car park, and she was guiltily grateful to his mother for insisting that he go with her to the hospital.

Being driven was a luxury too, she thought, sinking into the comfortable leather seat. It certainly beat the tube, or squeezing onto a bus with everyone else, coats steaming and breath misting the windows.

‘You don’t strike me as a man who’s scared of his mother,’ she said, turning slightly to look at him as he got in beside her.

‘She has her own ways of getting what she wants,’ said Simon in a dry voice. ‘I’ve learnt it’s easier just to do what she says.’

Throwing his arm over the back of her seat, he reversed out of the narrow parking slot. Clara sat very still, afraid to move her head in case she brushed against him. All at once it felt as if there wasn’t quite enough oxygen in the car.

‘I thought she was charming,’ she said breathlessly.

‘Oh, yes, she’s charming,’ he said with a sigh and, to Clara’s relief, he brought his arm back to put the car into forward gear once more. ‘Great fun, wonderful company and completely irresponsible, but she gets away with it. She can be utterly infuriating, but if you try and reason with her, she just smiles and pats your cheek and, before you know where you are, you’re doing exactly what she wants.’

Now why hadn’t she thought of patting his cheek? Clara wondered. Somehow she felt it wouldn’t have worked for her.

She liked the sound of Frances, though. She seemed a most unlikely mother for Simon.

‘You must take after your father,’ she said.

It was a throwaway comment, but Simon’s face closed and his mouth set in a compressed line.

‘No, I don’t,’ he said harshly. ‘I don’t resemble him at all.’

CHAPTER THREE

‘WOW.’ A-glitter with lights, London lay spread out below Simon’s apartment. Across the Thames, the bridges were illuminated as if strung with fairy lights, and Clara could see right down to the Houses of Parliament and the huge circle of the London Eye. In the darkness, the streets seemed to be shimmering with energy.

‘Wow,’ she said again. ‘What a fabulous view! It feels like you’re on top of the world, doesn’t it?’

She turned back to admire the rest of the apartment, which was stark and stylish, and somehow not at all what she had expected of someone as conventional as Simon Valentine. ‘What an amazing place.’

Simon shrugged as he pocketed his car keys. ‘It’s a convenient location for the City, and these properties make sound investments.’

‘Right,’ said Clara, who had never invested in property in her life.

‘I think it’s ghastly!’ said Frances. She had changed and was looking remarkably relaxed and elegant for someone who had been mugged hours earlier. ‘I keep telling him that he should at least put up some curtains.’

She looked around her disparagingly. ‘Soulless is the only word for it. What this place needs is a woman’s touch,’ she said as Simon blew out an exasperated breath, having clearly heard it all before. ‘Don’t you agree, Clara?’

Clara thought of the cluttered flat she shared with Allegra. It was cosier than Simon’s apartment, that was for sure, but she couldn’t see Simon wanting cushions and throws and magazines scattered on the sofa. He wouldn’t like cold mugs of tea left lying around, shoes discarded on the floor or bras and tights drying over the radiators. That coffee table would never be buried under nail polishes and phone chargers and old newspapers and empty crisp packets and menus from the Indian takeaway round the corner.

In fact, the woman’s touch was probably the last thing Simon needed.

‘It’s very spacious,’ she said diplomatically.

Frances sniffed. ‘I don’t know why he doesn’t buy a nice house in Chelsea or somewhere. It would be so much nicer for me to visit.’ She heaved an exaggerated sigh but, when Simon remained unmoved, turned back to Clara.

‘Anyway, come and sit down.’ Without giving Clara an opportunity to protest, she drew her over towards one of the cream sofas and spoke over her shoulder to her son.

‘Darling, do get Clara a drink. You must be gasping for a G&T,’ she told Clara. ‘I know I am! Or I suppose Simon could make tea,’ she added doubtfully.

‘Mother—’ Simon’s teeth were audibly gritted ‘—Clara’s anxious to get home. She might not want a drink.’

‘Nonsense, of course she does. Don’t you, Clara?’

Clara was torn. Simon was clearly desperate to get rid of her, but it had been a long day and now that Frances had mentioned gin …

‘I’d love a gin and tonic,’ she confessed.

‘There you are!’ Frances turned triumphantly to her son. ‘And I’ll have one too, darling, to keep her company.’

Simon sucked in a breath. ‘Of course,’ he said tightly and disappeared to what Clara presumed was a kitchen.

‘Don’t mind him,’ Frances said with a sunny smile. ‘He likes to disapprove, but it’s good for him to relax a bit. He works so hard, poor darling, and now he’s on his own again …’ She leant towards Clara confidentially. ‘Well, I always thought Astrid was a bit of a cold fish, but at least she would make him go out.’

Clara was dying to gossip, but didn’t think she ought to. She asked Frances how long she was visiting instead, and Frances chatted happily about herself until Simon reappeared with drinks.

‘Now you must tell us all about you,’ she insisted, and proceeded to grill Clara about her family, background and job.

‘Oh, you work in television? How exciting! Simon’s on television sometimes.’

Clara’s eyes met Simon’s fleetingly over the rim of her glass. ‘Yes, I know.’ She had to give him points for being able to pour a mean gin and tonic. It was long and fizzy, with just the right amount of lime and ice. She was feeling better already and she settled back into the sofa, prepared to enjoy herself before she had to face the reality of failure again.

‘You must be very proud,’ she said to Frances.

‘Oh, I am, terribly. Of course, the idea of him being a pin-up is a bit of a hoot. Not that he wasn’t a gorgeous baby.’

‘Mother …’

Clara smothered a smile at Simon’s expression as Frances rattled on. ‘I see him on the news, and he sounds so clever and sensible. You’d never guess what a reckless little boy he was, would you?’

‘Mother—’ said Simon again, warning in his voice ‘—Clara’s had a long day. She doesn’t want to listen to a lot of boring family stories.’

Frances ignored him and spoke to a fascinated Clara. ‘He was full of mischief when he was little. Your hair would stand on end if I told you half the things he got up to! But then his father died …’ She trailed off sadly. ‘That was a horrible shock. I don’t know what I would have done without Simon then. He sorted everything out, and he’s been looking after us ever since.’

Simon’s jaw was set. ‘That’s not true—’

‘It is true,’ insisted Frances. ‘I always wonder how different you’d have been if your father hadn’t left things in such a mess.’

What mess? Clara wondered. It sounded as if there was an interesting story there, but when Simon caught her eye his expression was so tense that she couldn’t help responding to his unspoken appeal.

‘I really should be going,’ she interrupted Frances, who was clearly ready to tell the whole story. Draining her glass, she put it down and, one-armed, manoeuvred herself awkwardly to her feet from the deep sofa.

‘Must you go?’ Frances looked disappointed. ‘It’s been such fun meeting you, and I’m so, so grateful to you.’

‘It was nothing, really.’

‘It wasn’t nothing. You were an absolute heroine, and you’ve broken your wrist rescuing my wretched bag. I can’t possibly thank you enough. You must promise to tell us if there’s ever anything we can ever do for you. Mustn’t she, Simon?’

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