Celebrate the legend that is bestselling author

PENNY JORDAN

Phenomenally successful author of more than two hundred books with sales of over a hundred million copies!

Penny Jordan’s novels are loved by millions of readers all around the word in many different languages. Mills & Boon are proud to have published one hundred and eighty-seven novels and novellas written by Penny Jordan, who was a reader favourite right from her very first novel through to her last.

This beautiful digital collection offers a chance to recapture the pleasure of all of Penny Jordan’s fabulous, glamorous and romantic novels for Mills & Boon.

About the Author

PENNY JORDAN is one of Mills & Boon’s most popular authors. Sadly, Penny died from cancer on 31st December 2011, aged sixty-five. She leaves an outstanding legacy, having sold over a hundred million books around the world. She wrote a total of one hundred and eighty-seven novels for Mills & Boon, including the phenomenally successful A Perfect Family, To Love, Honour & Betray, The Perfect Sinner and Power Play, which hit the Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller lists. Loved for her distinctive voice, her success was in part because she continually broke boundaries and evolved her writing to keep up with readers’ changing tastes. Publishers Weekly said about Jordan ‘Women everywhere will find pieces of themselves in Jordan’s characters’ and this perhaps explains her enduring appeal.

Although Penny was born in Preston, Lancashire and spent her childhood there, she moved to Cheshire as a teenager and continued to live there for the rest of her life. Following the death of her husband, she moved to the small traditional Cheshire market town on which she based her much-loved Crighton books.

Penny was a member and supporter of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and the Romance Writers of America—two organisations dedicated to providing support for both published and yet-to-be-published authors. Her significant contribution to women’s fiction was recognised in 2011, when the Romantic Novelists’ Association presented Penny with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Equal Opportunities
Penny Jordan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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CHAPTER ONE

‘WHAT exactly do you mean, it’s too late to claim the child?’

David Wilder glanced apprehensively at his extremely grim client. He had been warned when he joined the prestigious city law firm of Rainer, McTeart and Holston that some of their clients were very demanding indeed, with exacting standards and sometimes very strong and unfortunately erroneous views about their rights under British law.

‘Unfortunately we do number among our clients a few who do not yet seem to be aware that there are some things that money just cannot buy,’ the senior partner had told him.

The senior partner was also his godfather, which was how he had come to join the practice in the first place; a relationship which he suspected was not going to protect him at all when the full wrath of the man standing opposite him burst upon his head.

He had acted for the best, he reflected miserably. A minor matter was how the senior partner had described the whole affair: something that need not concern their prestigious client, who was, in any event, out of the country on business at the time. Besides, the woman had already made it clear that she would take charge of the child. How was he supposed to know that Garrick Evans would want the child himself?

It was not, after all, as though there was anything other than the most tenuous of blood ties between them; the son of his deceased second cousin.

‘What do you mean, it’s too late?’ Garrick Evans demanded, repeating his earlier question. The lowered volume of his voice in some odd way added to its menace.

He was a tall man, a good two inches over six foot, with a frame that reminded David Wilder of his school days and the torments of the rugby field. He himself was of a much slighter built, and he gave an inward shudder at the very hardness of the other man. Garrick Evans was well into his thirties, and yet there was an air of honed fitness about him that suggested that he did not spend all his time poring over balance sheets and negotiating deals. But to read the financial press one would think that he did.

“One of the most important power brokers of our time,” was how the Financial Times had described him, and in doing so had coined a new phrase. A power broker was exactly what Garrick Evans was: a man whose skills in assessing the weak points of an institution and then turning them to either his own or his clients’ advantage were so notorious that it was said in the city that whole boards quailed at the sound of his name.

A millionaire before he was thirty, he no longer spent his time buying and selling vast corporations, but instead used his skills on a consultancy basis, normally working for governments or very large corporations. He also gave a great deal of his time to ensuring the profitable running of several large charities—time which he gave free of charge, although very few people knew it.

Garrick Evans had learned a very long time ago that to show people a weakness was to invite them to take advantage of it.

David Wilder cleared his throat and looked nervously into the cold grey eyes of his client.

‘Well…that is…Well, the fact is that by declaring that you were abdicating from any responsibility toward the child, you have also given up any rights you might have had over him.’

‘I?’ Garrick queried drily. ‘Odd…I don’t seem to remember making such a momentous decision.’

‘Well, no. You were out of the country at the time, in Venezuela, I believe. You may remember you had given strict instructions that you were only to be contacted in an emergency.’

‘I see. And you, of course, didn’t consider that the death of my cousin and his wife was an emergency. Is that it? Never mind the fact that my cousin has named me as co-guardian of his child.’

‘He was only your second cousin,’ David muttered helplessly. ‘There had been no contact between you as far as we knew.’

He didn’t add that the whole office knew of his well-documented loathing of hangerson of any kind, and it was for that reason that David had assumed that he wouldn’t want the child.

‘So, there was an error of judgement. Now what we have to do is to correct that error. Have you been in touch with the woman? What’s her name?’

‘Kate Oakley,’ David supplied for him, admitting, ‘Well, no, not yet. We weren’t sure what your instructions were going to be.’ He cleared his throat nervously again. ‘You see, it would be very difficult now to reclaim the child. We would have to prove negligence on the part of your co-guardian. And here, the mere fact that she’s a woman, and you’re a man, would immediately balance these scales in her favour…We could try to negotiate, of course.’

He said it so doubtfully that Garrick frowned.

‘How much do you know about her?’ he questioned abruptly.

Silently, David Wilder handed him a file.

‘Let me read this and then I’ll come back to you. In the meantime, don’t do anything. If I think it necessary, I’ll go and see Miss Oakley myself. It may be that I will be able to persuade her to see the advantages of the child’s coming to me,’ he said grimly.

A few hours later, when David Wilder was relating the story to his wife while she was preparing dinner, she turned her head and said thoughtfully, ‘Buy her off, did he mean?’

David winced, but admitted that it was a strong possibility.

‘Well, I hope she turns him down,’ Elaine told him roundly. ‘That poor baby…What on earth does he want it for, anyway? He doesn’t strike me as a man who would want to take on such a responsibility. Heavens, he’s never in one place long enough to bring up a child.’

‘He wants an heir, I suppose,’ David told her.

‘Oh, I see, and rather than go to the trouble of finding himself a wife, he’s decided he’d prefer to take on a ready-made son without the nuisance of a woman who might make emotional and financial demands on him. Typical! Just the sort of thing I would have expected from a man like him,’ she said scathingly.

David patted his wife’s hand, and put her outburst down to the fact that she herself was four months pregnant with their first child, a very emotional time for a woman, but of course there was a thread of truth in Elaine’s argument.

Despite the fact that over the course of the years Garrick Evans had had several long-standing relationships with women, it was rumoured that he always made it plain to them that they could forget marriage. A hard man. A man it would be very difficult to get to know. A man who wore an air about him of always getting what he wanted. And what he now wanted was a nine-month-old boy, currently living with his guardian; a woman who, according to her file, was an orphan herself, without either wealth or family to support her.

Even if she wanted to keep the child, she would never be able to stand out against Garrick. Feeling rather sorry for her, David Wilder applied himself to his dinner.

Not all that very far away from the elegant terraced house which had been Elaine Wilder’s parents’ wedding gift to her and her husband, Kate Oakley sat cross-legged on her sitting-room floor, the telephone receiver jammed into the crook of her neck while she painted her nails with her free hand.

Her house, although not in as fashionable part of London as the Wilders’, was every bit as elegantly decorated and furnished. As a PR consultant running her own business, Kate was well aware of the importance of creating the right image; hence the nail polish.

She finished one hand and studied the effect with a frown, while listening to her friend exclaiming in amusement.

‘Kate…you with a nine-month-old baby! This I have to see. How in the world are you managing?’

‘I’m not,’ Kate told her firmly. ‘That’s why I’m ringing you. In the last six weeks I’ve gone through four supposed nannies, Camilla. It can’t go on. I came in tonight all set to go out to dinner with James, only to discover the latest one waiting for me with her bags packed.’

‘Good heavens! Is the child so difficult, then?’

‘No, not at all. If anything, he’s inclined to be too subdued. The shock of losing his parents, poor little thing…No, the problem is me. Three nights this week, I haven’t managed to get in until gone ten at night. Everyone the agency has sent me expects to work a regulation seven-hour day; they don’t like being alone all the time with Michael; they don’t like the fact that I can’t provide them with a private sitting-room and a whole host of other luxuries, and as for their salaries—’ She gave a groan. ‘The agency is starting to do quite well, but not that well.’

She didn’t want to tell Camilla what a struggle it had been even for her to afford the new house. Up until the arrival of small Michael into her life, she had lived in a flat, but she had strong views on how a child should live, and those did not include being cooped up with no outside area to play in. The reason she had bought this particular house had been because of its walled-in back garden.

Admittedly it wasn’t very large, but it was certainly large enough for a small boy to vent his energy in. Of course, she was looking ahead. Michael was only nine months old, but in another couple of years…

‘I see. I sympathise, my dear, but why have you come to me?’

‘Oh, come on, Camilla. You know everyone there is to know in London. If anyone can help me, it’s you. You must know where I can find a reliable nanny who isn’t going to cost me the earth…’

It was so unusual for her friend to sound so exasperated that Camilla frowned and stopped doodling on her notepad.

She had known Kate for almost ten years. In fact, Kate had worked for her when she first came to London. Camilla had sold out her interest in her own PR firm several years ago, and now spent all her time helping her husband in his own business and looking after their twin daughters. She was proud of Kate’s success and drive, feeling that she had been the one responsible for recognising and nurturing them, and she sympathised with her in her present dilemma.

She and her husband had only just returned from a six months’ working visit to New York, and this was her first real opportunity to catch up with her friend’s life.

‘I think you’d better start at the beginning and tell me the whole story,’ she suggested firmly. ‘Apart from a frantic message on my answering machine, I know nothing whatsoever about this baby who suddenly seems to have taken over your life. He’s not yours, of course…’

‘No,’ Kate agreed quietly, adding, ‘He’s my godson.’

Start at the beginning, Camilla had said, but she didn’t want to. She had put those years at the orphanage and all the insecurities that went with them firmly behind her now, hadn’t she?

‘His parents were killed in a car crash. Neither of them had any close family.’

‘No one? But, Kate, surely…’

‘Alan has a second cousin, but they rarely met.’ She said it in such a clipped voice that, even without seeing her, Camilla could sense her friend’s reluctance to discuss what had happened. Kate could be like that at times, erecting fences behind which she quietly disappeared. They had known one another a long time, and yet Kate rarely talked about her past.

Camilla knew better than to press her now, saying merely, ‘I see. So there’s no question of you—er—handing over the responsibility of this baby to someone else?’

‘No!’ Kate told her explosively, and then, realising how much she had betrayed, felt obliged to explain reluctantly, ‘I can’t do that, Camilla…I can’t explain it to you, but I feel I owe it to Jennifer, his mother, to bring Michael up myself. You see, I know she’d want him to have all the things that she and I didn’t have. A real home life..she and I didn’t have. A real home life…family…’

Abruptly Kate stopped. Already she had betrayed too much, revealed too much, and she started to shake a little as she clutched the receiver. This was the reason she hated to discuss the past: it opened up too many vulnerable areas, too many heartaches that had never properly healed.

‘I see,’ Camilla said compassionately. ‘Well, my dear, there’s only one way to do that, isn’t there? You will have to find yourself a husband.’

There was a short silence, and then Kate said harshly, ‘You know my views on marriage, Camilla. I’m a career woman who wants to earn her own security, not to receive it secondhand from a man who would walk out of my life whenever he chose.’

‘Oh, Kate.’ Camilla could have wept for her. Where did it come from, this deep, abiding fear of depending on anyone other than herself that made Kate so terrified of emotional commitment? Independence was fine, but it could be carried to extremes. ‘Kate, marriage needn’t be like that,’ she protested quietly. ‘Husband and wife can be equal partners, each loving and respecting the other…each mutually dependent on the other…’

‘Perhaps,’ Kate agreed after a long pause. ‘But it isn’t a risk I want to take.’

‘Well, then, your next best alternative is to follow the example of someone like Britt Ekland, and hire a male nanny,’ Camilla told her.

‘A what?’

‘A male nanny,’ Camilla repeated patiently. ‘They do exist, I promise you, and marvellous they are too, by all accounts. You’d be surprised how many single working mothers employ men to take care of their children, especially when they’re boys. Male patterning and all that. And apparently it works. There’s also the added advantage that there’s less jealousy between Mum and nanny when she’s a he, if you know what I mean. Less feeling that somehow or other someone else is taking your place with the baby.

Look, I know an agency that specialises in finding male nannies. Why don’t I give them a ring on your behalf and see what they can come up with?’ she suggested.

A male nanny! Kate frowned. Did she really want a strange young man sharing her home?And yet the suggestion had its good points. She had been conscious of rather more than mere covert disapproval from a couple of the girls she had been employing, as though they felt that she was somehow not doing her best for Michael by going out to work, and yet what alternative had she? If she didn’t work, she could not support herself. She had no money, no family, nothing to fall back on other than her own skills in the workplace.

‘Look, give it a try,’ Camilla urged her. ‘What have you got to lose? I’ll give the agency a ring, get them to send someone round, and if you don’t like them…Well, there’s nothing lost, is there?’

‘All right,” Kate agreed hesitantly. From upstairs she caught the sound of a small, fretful wail. ‘I’ll have to go. Michael’s just woken up.’

‘OK. Leave everything to me. I’ll sort something out. Oh, and by the way, how are you getting on with James?’

James Cameron owned, among other things, a chain of supermarkets spread throughout the country, and through Camilla’s good offices Kate had got the opportunity to take over his PR work. The supermarkets, for one reason or another, did not have a good image, and if Kate could get the contract to change this it would be a very healthy boost to her profits.

‘He’s taking me out to dinner next week. I’ve got to prepare a couple of presentations for him. He wants to start going up-market with the supermarket acquisition.’

‘Watch out for him, Kate,’ Camilla warned. ‘He regards himself as something of a stud.’

‘Don’t they all?’ was Kate’s grim response, and Camilla sighed at her tone of voice.

‘Some do,’ she admitted, ‘but there are others. Men who like and respect women as well as desire them. The problem with you is that because you prefer to think that all men are like the Jameses of this world, you deliberately close your eyes to the existence of the other sort. I’ve often wondered why.’

‘It’s safer that way,’ Kate told her, and then stopped abruptly. She was giving too much away. Betraying more about herself than was wise. Good friend though Camilla was, if she were to learn of Kate’s fear of committing herself emotionally to someone, and through that commitment being hurt as she had been hurt as a child, Camilla would, for the very best of reasons, try to change her outlook. And she didn’t want her outlook changing. She felt safer with it the way it was.

Their conversation over, she went upstairs and walked into Michael’s bedroom, switching on the light. She had purposefully put a soft light in this room, so that no brightness would distress the baby.

Michael had been premature, and was still slightly small for his age. He was wide awake and not crying now that he saw her. As she reached down into the cot, he raised his arms to her.

Kate picked him up, and comforted him automatically. She felt the dampness of his mouth where he sucked her shoulder and her silk shirt. Damn! She normally changed when she got home from work, but tonight, what with the rumpus with the nanny, she hadn’t had time.

He had thrown off his blankets and his hands felt cold. She reached down into the cot and picked one up, wrapping him securely in it. Thinking he was going to be put down, he started to cry, his small features puckering.

The social worker who had interviewed her following Alan and Jen’s deaths had warned her that for some considerable time Michael was going to feel insecure. So far this insecurity had manifested itself in bouts of tears in the middle of the night which had necessitated Kate getting up to take the baby into her own room, while his nanny slept on, apparently undisturbed by the noise.

Years of living with small children had given Kate an expertise she had not even realised she possessed until Michael came into her life. She was half appalled by her own inherent skill in looking after him, at least physically. Emotionally, she wasn’t anything like as sure that she would be able to cope with his needs.

She adjusted her stance to cope with his weight with an expertise that would have astounded most people who knew her, easily rocking her body so that its rhythm soothed his whimpers.

The tears had stopped now, but she knew from experience that the moment she tried to put him back in his cot they would start again; it was all too understandable, really, this defiant bid to claim her attention.

None of the nannies she had had so far had been pleased by her ruling that Michael was to remain upstairs. The house was only small, and the sitting-room and dining-room she had had so carefully furnished sometimes had to double as an extension of her office.

Clients sometimes visited her at home; she entertained them at small, elegant dinner parties, using the recipes she had carefully and meticulously learned at nightschool. She wasn’t an inspired cook, but she had the intelligence to realise that every tiny skill she added to her repertoire increased her chances of ultimate success.

A male client, dubious about dealing with one of the new breed of city career woman, could have his fears soothed by the production of a delicious home-cooked meal, thus restoring his innate belief that women, even career women, enjoyed pandering to men. It was because she had to look upon her sitting-room and dining-room as extensions of her office that Michael was barred from them. A scatter of toys and baby things, no matter how domestic, would not serve to enhance the image she was careful to project.

Instead she had given Michael the largest of the three bedrooms, and what was more she had decorated it herself—another learned skill.

Nor could she simply abandon her responsibility to him. Jen had been as close to her as if they were sisters. Closer in some ways. And she owed it to her friend to do the very best she could for Michael.

It would be easier once he was old enough to go to school…once she had her business firmly established. Already it was doing well, but not well enough for her to be able to sit back and relax. She would just have to hope that Camilla came up with someone suitable.

Michael was asleep…Very gently she removed him from her shoulder and walked over to the cot. Before she got there, he was awake, blue eyes regarding her with solemn regard, the baby mouth starting to pucker.

‘All right, you win,’ Kate told him wryly. They had been through this routine several times before. So often, in fact, that it was beginning to become a habit.

Not that she actually minded. There was something quite soothing about working in Michael’s room, at the desk that would one day be his, and he seemed to find her presence a calming influence. He didn’t even seem to mind the desk-lamp she used to illuminate her work.

Holding him against her shoulder with one arm, she went downstairs for her briefcase. The final details of the plans she intended to put before James were inside it. It was still four days before their meeting, but she wanted to be sure she had everything right.

Back in Michael’s room, she put him in his cot again. This time, as though he knew that he had won and that she would stay, he closed his eyes immediately.

Kate wasn’t fooled. She knew the moment she attempted to leave the room they would be open again, and he would start howling—that thin, fretful cry that tore at the nerves and penetrated so tormentingly every barrier raised against it.

She ought to be used to crying babies; after all, there had been enough of them at the children’s home.

She opened her briefcase and extracted her papers.

James Cameron’s supermarkets were in the main small stores in country towns—often shabby and run-down, from the information she had received. She had driven out to some of them to check on the location and size, as well as reading the reports he had given her, and she was going to suggest to him that, since he could not compete with the huge nationwide retailers, in order to make his image more up-market, he got away from the plate-glass-window image of supermarkets and instead went for something cosier and more countrified.

Bow windows with Georgian panes had been her first thought, as this would immediately give both a more up-market image and have a much warmer appeal to the shopper. At the same time she intended to recommend that, where his own lines of produce were concerned, he had the packaging changed in line with the slightly Victorian, country look of the stores. She had experimented with mock-ups of labels and packagings in a soft gingham check so that she could show him what she had in mind.

A new advertising campaign in line with this would all help to reinforce the new image. TV and radio slots with voice-overs in a warm, male, countrified accent. Posters and magazine ads concentrating on the wholefood appeal of certain lines.

What she had in mind would mean a radical rethink on some of the major lines the stores stocked, but since this would only be in line with the current interest in additive free, more healthy food, Kate thought that the two-pronged attack would have an increased chance of success.

It was gone eleven o’clock when she finished working. Her head was starting to ache, because the lamp she was using was not really strong enough for close work, but she hesitated to illuminate the room too brightly in case it disturbed the sleeping baby.

As she put down her pen, she could hear him making small, snuffly noises in his sleep. Strange how accustomed her senses were to him already after only four weeks; so much so that one night the momentary absence of them had actually woken her and she had rushed into his room to discover he had turned over and was lying with his face pressed into the bedding. There had been no real danger of him suffocating but, nevertheless, she was glad that her senses had alerted her to the hazard.

When Jen had asked her to be his godmother, Kate had never dreamed of what was to come. Poor little boy. She was really no substitute at all for his real mother, but she was that mother’s choice, and when he was old enough to understand she would make sure that he shared as many of her memories of Jen as he could.

She was only thankful that tomorrow was Saturday. Not that she normally took the day off. It had been her habit to go into the office and go through the week’s work. The two girls who worked for her were very good. Conscientious and hardworking, but it was not their business, not their future, not their success or failure. She had enjoyed those oases of time alone in the elegant but minute offices in Knightsbridge that cost her the earth, but that were worth it because of the cachet they gave her business.

Industrialists were snobs when it came to whom they used to sell their products, as she had soon discovered. They liked using agencies with smart upper-class reputations, and Kate had been quick to forge her own contacts with the prestigious advertising agencies.

Camilla had helped her there. Her husband was on the board of one of London’s most prestigious agencies, and through Camilla’s good offices she had made several strong and very valuable contacts.

Yes Camilla had been a good friend to her, right from the start when she had taken her on fresh from university with nothing but her degree and her determination to recommend her.

She had enjoyed those years with Camilla, but once Camilla had taken the decision to commit herself to Hugo and their family, Kate had known it was only a matter of time before her friend sold out, and rather than become a small cog in what promised to be a very large wheel Kate had taken the decision to set up on her own.

It had been the right decision, she was sure of that. The only decision, but as an employee of someone else might she not have been freer to spend more time with Michael?

It wouldn’t be for much longer. Another couple of years and she would have successfully established herself. Perhaps she could even then start working from home a couple of days a week. Right now that wasn’t feasible. She didn’t have a good enough reputation, but if she got this contract from James…

Another valuable introduction Camilla had given her.

Yes, she had much to thank Camilla for, and she would have even more if Camilla found her a suitable nanny, she acknowledged tiredly as she snapped off the light and tiptoed quietly out of the room.

CHAPTER TWO

OLD habits died hard, and it had been a firm rule of the children’s home where Kate had been brought up that everyone got up at six-thirty.

Even now, when she could have stayed in bed, she found it impossible, and in consequence, however late her night, she was invariably wide awake at six-thirty the next day.

This Saturday was no exception, and as she lay in bed listening to Michael’s burblings on the intercom, she reflected wryly on the days when all she had to do when she first got up in the morning was to organise herself for her prebreakfast run. Now she didn’t run, but what she did do, rain or shine, was to put Michael in his pushchair and walk him to the park, so that they could both enjoy the freshness of the new day.

The park was small and Victorian, with formal flowerbeds and trees. There was a muddy pond in the centre of it, normally deserted in the early morning, apart from one or two moth-eaten ducks, soliciting shamelessly for food.

This morning, as he did every morning, Michael showed his approval of their outing by clapping his hands and laughing happily while Kate zipped him into his ski-suit.

She herself had pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt. She had discovered within the first week of having Michael that her pencil-slim designer skirts and silk shirts were not ideal wear around a very young child, and so she had been forced to go out and comb the chain-stores in search of something more sensible.

Half a dozen pairs of jeans, plus an assortment of sweatshirts, had been the ultimate answer. Knowing Michael’s propensity for covering them both in sticky mess, she no longer wondered at most young mothers’ apparent uniform of jeans and tops. Running a brush through her hair, she gathered it up in a ponytail and snapped a band round it, before pulling on her anorak.

It wasn’t easy to manoeuvre the pushchair down the stone steps, but she had developed a knack for dealing with them now. The street was deserted and quite dark still, but that didn’t bother Kate; she liked the solitude of the early morning city, when most of its inhabitants were still in bed.

In the park the ducks quacked in welcome, but she didn’t do more than pause to watch them. The object of the exercise was not just fresh air for Michael, but physical exercise for her as well, and that involved pushing the pram briskly ten times round the park and then back home.

Once there, she would put Michael in his high chair and make them both breakfast. Michael would probably throw most of his on the floor, and she would be lucky if she could even manage to drink her coffee before it got cold.

She was a dedicated career woman, with precious little security, a huge mortgage, a very new business to develop and no one to rely on but herself. Add to that the fact that she was solely responsible for a nine-month-old baby, the very last kind of responsibility she had ever wanted, and it seemed incredible to Kate that she should feel so absurdly happy. So happy, in fact, that once they had finished their exercise and she was heading back to the house, she stopped to blow kisses into the pram, causing Michael to laugh delightedly, and the man watching her from the other side of the road to frown.

That must be the nanny, Garrick reflected, watching as Kate skilfully negotiated the steps and unlocked her front door.

He had come here on impulse, a little surprised to discover it was so close to his own apartment.

He had spent the previous evening studying the file David Wilder had given him. On the face of it there was no logical reason why Kate Oakley should refuse to hand the child over to him. She was a career woman first, second and third; that much was plain. The kind of woman who would never willingly saddle herself with a child, and he should know…

His mouth twisted bitterly as he remembered Francesca. He had met her when he was twenty-three, and a very naïve twenty-three he had been, too.

Fresh on the London scene and working for a firm of merchant bankers, he had met Francesca at a disco. They had dated for two months before they slept together. Although they had been the same age, it had disconcerted him to discover that her sexual experience was far greater than his own, but he had accepted it when she told him that she had had a previous long-standing relationship with someone else. A relationship that was now over.

Six months later they were engaged. Six weeks after that Francesca had married someone else.

It had been then that he discovered how much she had lied to him. There hadn’t been any long-standing relationship with someone, just a series of very brief affairs with a good many someone elses…men in the main much older and wealthier than Francesca herself.

Calvin Harvey had been one of those previous lovers. A married man now divorced—an extremely wealthy, once married man, who now wanted as his second wife Garrick’s fiancée. And Francesca hadn’t hesitated.

‘But surely you understand, darling,’ she had pouted when Garrick, white-faced and disbelieving, had finally realised that she meant what she was saying. ‘It was fun with you and me, but marriage…Honestly, darling, can you see me as the wife of a poor man?’

‘I wanted you to be the mother of my children,’ Garrick had protested despairingly. He could hear her laughter still. Shrill and acid.

‘A mother? Oh, my poor dear Garrick, what an idiot you are! I shall never have children. Such a bore…and it ruins one’s figure. Don’t worry, darling, it needn’t end between us. Calvin has business interests abroad and he’s away an awful lot. I’ll ring you.’

And so she had, but only once. By then he had realised the truth about her and he had told her in plain and blistering English exactly what she could do with her favours and her much-used body. It had given him some temporary relief to his heartache. What a fool man was that he could realise exactly what a woman was with his mind, and yet not stop wanting her with his body. But all that was behind him now.

It had left its scars, though. Hence his determination not to marry, and his desire to take charge of his second cousin’s child.

He himself had been an only child, but his mother had been baby mad. She had filled the house with the offspring of friends and neighbours. She and his father were retired now. They lived in Cornwall, where his mother painted and his father grew flowers.

He couldn’t expect them to bring Michael up for him. He would need to find a reliable nanny. Perhaps even the girl that Kate Oakley employed. To judge from her behaviour, she seemed fond enough of the child. That shouldn’t be too difficult…But he was running ahead of himself. First he had to speak with Kate Oakley.

He didn’t anticipate having any problems, but he had learned long ago that it was as well to be prepared for all eventualities. If she should refuse to hand over the baby…well, then he would need all the ammunition he could find to prove that she was unfit to have the charge of him.

It had started to rain while he stood in the street, a fine November mizzle that soaked his thick black hair and made it curl. He hunched his shoulders against the damp, and wondered irately what had possessed David Wilder to behave so idiotically. Delegate…delegate…that was what he was always being told, and yet, the moment he did, look what happened!

An early morning cyclist braked to a startled halt as Garrick stepped out into the road in front of him, muttering under his breath.

Apologising grimly to him, Garrick crossed the road. He was thirty-five years old and a millionaire; once that had been said, what else was there to say? The woman who had been sharing his bed for the last three years had announced four months ago that the corporation that employed her was moving her out to New York. She would stay, she had intimated, if Garrick married her. He had told her crisply and incisively that he would not and why. And it had come as a slight shock to discover that he missed her sexually almost as little as he missed her emotionally…which was to say not at all. What was happening to him?

He knew the answer. Life had lost its bite, its savour, its challenge.

He had reached a time in his life when simply to succeed was not enough, and for some reason the thought of having a child, a cause, and perhaps at some later stage a companion as well as a successor, appealed tremendously to him.

Of course, he knew there were any number of women who would be only too pleased to give him a son. But that was not what he wanted. Their children would come with strings attached…demands, both pecuniary and emotional, which he had no wish to bear.

No, this child…this orphan would be ideal. And the child would benefit from their relationship, too. He would see to it. That Oakley woman would probably be all too pleased to give him up.

He now knew all there was to know about Kate Oakley, and he would use that information with all the ruthlessness for which he was so notorious, if he had to.

At eleven o’clock Kate’s doorbell rang and she went to answer it, still wearing her sweatshirt and jeans. She and Michael had been building a tower of plastic blocks, and Camilla raised her eyebrows a little when Kate ushered her straight upstairs instead of into the sitting-room.

‘Well…so this is the young man who’s causing so much disruption, is it?’ Camilla asked, swooping down on Michael and picking him up. ‘Oh, he’s gorgeous, Kate! Makes me feel all maternal inside…Oh, dear,’ she laughed as Michael started to pout and turn his face away from her, holding out his arms to Kate.

With her hair in a ponytail and her face free of make-up, she looked closer to twenty than thirty, Camilla reflected, studying her covertly. At twenty-eight, Kate could still look absurdly young at times; watching her cuddle the little boy, Camilla wondered if she realised how expressive her face was. For a dedicated career woman, she was beginning to look surprisingly madonna-like. Wisely Camilla decided not to tell her so. She knew that Kate prided herself on her independence, and it wouldn’t be kind to point out to her that that one illuminating smile had betrayed all too clearly how very dependent she already was on the small human body she was holding in her arms.

It was odd how kids got to you. Take her own two…She had vowed she didn’t want any, and yet from the moment they were born they had turned her life upside-down and she had let them.

‘Good news, I think,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I’ve found you a nanny. I got in touch with this friend of mine and she knows the ideal chap. Loads of experience. Adores kids and is especially good with young children. He can start straight away. In fact, the sooner the better. It seems that his previous boss started to get the wrong idea about their relationship, and propositioned him…’ She gave a rich chuckle. ‘It’s good to know that sexual harrassment can work both ways, isn’t it?’

Kate sat down, holding Michael on her knee. ‘Camilla, I’m not sure about this…Perhaps when Michael’s a bit older…’

The truth was that she didn’t want to share her home with a man; she found the mere thought slightly intimidating, and yet, after all, what was there to be afraid of? She would be the one in control, she would be the boss…he would simply be her employee.

‘Not sexual stereotyping, are we?’Camilla tutted archly, grinning at her. ‘Men can take care of babies just as well as women, you know. Besides, I thought that we’d already agreed that a man would be best for you, less of a hassle for you to deal with.’

‘Well, yes,’ Kate admitted, remembering how much trouble her friend was going to on her behalf. ‘But he’ll have to live in.’

There was a small, surprised silence, and then Camilla said briskly, ‘Well, you’ve got a spare room, haven’t you?’ adding firmly, ‘Good heavens, Kate! From what I’ve heard, this man is more likely to be terrified that you’re going to rape him, rather than the other way around…if that is what’s worrying you.’

‘No, of course it isn’t,’ Kate told her testily. ‘It’s just…Well, I’m not used to sharing my home with a man.’

‘No, you’re not, are you?’ Camilla agreed drily, and then reminded her, ‘One day Michael’s going to be a man, Kate, and quite honestly, for his sake…’

‘Yes…yes, all right,’ she agreed, giving in. ‘How old is he, by the way?’

She was acutely conscious of how close she had come to making a fool of herself…of inviting Camilla to ask questions for which she had no answers.

‘I’m not sure. Sue described him as mature. She says she can vouch for his references, by the way. In fact, she wanted to know all there was to know about you…which isn’t a great deal. Apparently this isn’t the first time she’s had complaints from the men on her books about the—er—extra-curricular duties demanded by their female employers. It seems that there’s more than meets the eye to employing a male nanny,’ she added with a grin. ‘Anyway, I’ve managed to convince her that you’re not likely to demand your evil way with him, and so she’s sending him round for an interview. Some time this weekend, but I’m not sure when. I thought I’d come round and alert you. As well as making this young man’s acquaintance…’ She paused to tickle Michael, who grinned back at her. ‘Oh, and I explained to her that you couldn’t afford to provide him with transport, etc., but she said not to worry, he has his own car.’

‘Umm…It seems odd, though, don’t you think?’ Kate commented doubtfully. ‘A man caring for a small child?’

‘Not at all,’ Camilla contradicted robustly. ‘I know quite a few that do. Not professionally, perhaps, but I know a fair number of couples where it’s the wife who has the career and the husband who’s bringing up baby, and very well it works, too. Kate, do stop worrying,’ she instructed kindly. ‘If you don’t like the man when you interview him, then simply send him away and we’ll try and find someone else. All I can tell you is that Sue is very particular about who she has on her books, and according to her this man is one of her best. Mind you, you won’t be able to look upon him as a permanent fixture, I’m afraid. She did also say that he’s studying some kind of advanced computer course. Apparently he’s worked abroad for some years and was made redundant. Now he’s trying to re-train himself for the job market and earn himself a living at the same time. Hence the nannying. Look, I must go. I’ve got to collect the girls from their dancing class at one, and then we’re taking them out for lunch. Oh, how about dinner some time next week?’

‘I’ll give you a ring if I may. After all, unless I get a nanny, I won’t be going anywhere, never mind out to dinner,’ Kate told her drily.

By the time Camilla left, Michael was grizzling for his lunch. Kate took him downstairs with her while she opened the fridge and removed the puréed soup she had already made.

Michael, sitting in his high chair, banged demandingly on the table with his spoon while she heated the soup. Already in four short weeks she had become dangerously attached to him; already she could see how he was changing, growing, and her heart ached for Jen and Alan. They had wanted Michael so much. Loved him so much.

After lunch Michael had a sleep while Kate got changed and did her hair. She had shopping to do, mainly food, but she liked to buy things that were as fresh as possible.

The rain had stopped, but the pavements were wet, and the air damply cold. Pulling on her trench coat, she checked that the safety harness was secure, and then manoeuvred the pushchair down the steps.

In the high street several men looked at her, admiring the slenderness of her ankles and the elegance of her high cheek-boned face. Her dark hair gleamed in the light from the shop windows, her immaculate make-up making several other women wonder how on earth she found the time to look so good, when she had a small child to take care of.

Despite the fact that her clothes were probably not much more expensive than those worn by her fellow shoppers, Kate stood out from the crowd. She shopped with the same brisk efficiency she brought to everything she did, quite prepared to haggle when she considered that what she was being offered was not value for money. She had learned in her early days in London to make her money stretch a long way. Not for her expensive and un-nutritious ready-made meals. She preferred to shop economically and make her own soups and stews, to search out the best bargains in fresh fruit and vegetables; frugal habits which she had maintained even though they were no longer strictly necessary.

It was almost five o’clock before she had finished her shopping. The streets were dark and damp. She paused outside a toy shop already decked out for Christmas. This would be Michael’s first Christmas. She remembered Christmases at the children’s home: busy, noisy affairs with presents bought and donated by various charities; church in the morning; then lunch and then a party at teatime.

Everyone had done their best, but Kate knew she hadn’t been the only child there with a cold miserable place in its heart, mourning the Christmases that had once been.

Jen had once told her that she was lucky, because she at least had once had parents. She reached into the pram and touched Michael’s face. He smiled back at her, and for a moment tears stung her eyes.

A woman of twenty-eight crying in the street—ridiculous. She straightened up firmly, but at the back of her mind lurked the knowledge that she mustn’t fail Jen; she mustn’t prove unworthy of the trust Jen had placed in her.

She had bought one of Michael’s favourite treats for supper—bananas to which she added just the smallest spoonful of natural yoghurt. It was never too early to start teaching a child good eating habits, although she suspected that there would come a time when, like all children, Michael would insist on living for weeks on something like baked beans or fish fingers. Tea over, it was bathtime, a ritual which they both enjoyed, although it was only at weekends that Kate was able to share it with him.

One grim-faced nanny had complained to Kate that she didn’t like little boys who made so much mess, and Kate, who wanted to encourage Michael to have as much enjoyment in life’s simple pleasures as possible, had not been sorry to see her go.

This last one had been different; young and warm-hearted, she had seemed almost ideal. However, as she explained to Kate, her boyfriend did not like her having to work so many evenings, and so she had found another job which paid more and carried far less responsibility.

She was just preparing Michael’s bath when the doorbell rang. Frowning over the unexpected interruption, Kate picked him off the bedroom floor and carried him downstairs with her.

Shielding him from the cold, she opened the front door. The man standing there was unfamiliar to her, and with the light behind him it was hard to pick out individual features. She saw that he was dressed in casual clothes; the streetlight shone faintly on the softness of a metallic grey leather blouson, and she also saw that he was very tall…tall and broad, with a silent, unmoving stance that was rather intimidating.

‘Kate Oakley?’ he asked her in a cool, firmly modulated, accentless voice, the words clipped and economical, as though he was a man who disliked waste, of either time or energy.

‘Er—yes.’ Kate stepped back into the hall automatically, and the man followed her inside, even though she had not invited him to do so.

‘Let me introduce myself,’ he began, and Kate’s slight frown lifted as she realised who he must be.

‘Oh, you’re from the agency,’ she interrupted. ‘They did warn me that you would call round some time this weekend. Please come in…I’m just about to give Michael his bath. Would you like to come upstairs? We can talk up there. I don’t like to disturb his routine too much.’

Without waiting for his response, Kate headed for the stairs.

Something about the man disturbed her. One look at those flint-hard grey eyes had sent her stomach churning with nervous tension, and she felt very much as though she were the one being interviewed, and not him.

He was older than she had imagined, too. Somewhere in his mid-thirties. Not at all the kind of man she imagined would want to spend his time taking care of a small child. But then, Camilla had warned her that he was simply working as a nanny while retraining for a new career.

She reached the top of the stairs and turned to look back at him. He was half-way up, and from her vantage point she could look down on the thick darkness of his head. His hair was well groomed and clean, his nails on the hand that held on to the banister well kept and shaped, but not the nails of a man who regularly visited a manicurist. His clothes were good and very expensive, she observed, noting the softness of his leather blouson and the way the dark trousers clung to his thighs. Italian and very probably cashmere. He must have bought them while he was working abroad and earning good money, she decided.

‘The agency tells me that you’re very experienced with small children,’ she commented as she waited for him to join her. ‘I must say I’m surprised.’

Three steps behind her on the stairs Garrick tensed briefly, glad that she couldn’t see his face. What on earth was the woman talking about? And what did she mean—the agency?

Garrick wasn’t used to being caught at a disadvantage, and within the space of ten minutes this woman had done so twice, even if she herself was not aware of it.

The first time had been when she opened the door and he had realised that the girl he had mistaken for the nanny was in fact Kate herself. All right, so now she had her hair caught up in an elegant knot, and he could see now that he was face to face with her the air of cool authority she wore. But he could also see how trustingly the child looked at her, and how competently she held him in her arms, as though she was both used and happy with his small weight there.

That knowledge disturbed him, alerting him to a range of possible problems he hadn’t anticipated. What he had expected was that after a brief discussion he would offer Kate Oakley a generous sum of money to part with the child, which she would be only too relieved to accept, like the sensible businesswoman he had discovered she was. However, he was already beginning to suspect he had been too sanguine.

And what was this agency she was talking about? No one in the last ten years had ever mistaken Garrick for anything other than what he was: a singularly powerful and sometimes dangerous businessman.

‘I know that the agency have vouched in full for your abilities, but I expect you’ll appreciate that I’ll have to ask you a few questions of my own. Did they explain to you that you’ll be in full charge of Michael during the day? I work long hours, I’m afraid, and I don’t get home until well into the evening some days, which means that you’ll be on duty until I do return. Weekends you will be able to have off in full. I don’t have a car, but the agency told me that you had your own transport. I’ll show you your room in a moment. All right, Michael, I know you want your bath…I’m sorry about this,’ she apologised to Garrick over her shoulder as she hurried into the nursery. ‘But Michael loves his bath, and he’s apt to get a bit impatient if the fun’s delayed.’

She paused just inside the room, and said thoughtfully, ‘Look, why don’t I let you bathe him? As you will be in full charge of Michael, I’m sure you’ll realise that it’s important for me to feel that you can establish a rapport with him. I must confess when my friend suggested a male nanny, I was rather doubtful. She pointed out to me that Michael would benefit from the male influence in his life, but I feel he’s rather young as yet for me to worry about male/

female roles.’

Garrick, who had followed her into the room, stared at her back as she bent to put Michael down. Had he gone mad, or did this woman really believe that he had come here to be interviewed as a nanny for the child?

As Kate straightened up and gave him a coolly appraising smile, he realised that he hadn’t, and that Kate did seriously believe that was why he was here.

He opened his mouth to correct her misapprehension, and then closed it again. Several times during his life he had been called upon to make split-second and impulsive decisions, and never once had his intuition failed him. This time it was telling him to go along with her self-deception. He was rapidly coming to the belief that there was no way Kate Oakley was going to calmly hand over the child. He could see just by watching her with him how fiercely protective of him she was. That in no way altered his own determination to have sole responsibility for Michael, but what it did alter was the method he would now need to adopt to get legal control of Michael.

David Wilder had warned him that the only way the courts would ever take Michael away from Kate Oakley would be if she could be proved to be an unfit guardian. And what better way to be able to prove that than to live here in the same house with them and to observe at firsthand how she responded to her responsibilities?

One set of facts could be presented in so many different ways, to give a hundred different impressions, Garrick knew that. He wondered what the courts would think of a woman who employed an unknown man to take care of a nine-month-old child without even making any attempt to check his credentials.

When Kate looked at him, he was smiling at her. It was an odd, chilling sort of smile, and for a moment she was tempted to snatch up Michael and tell him to leave.

Control yourself, she commanded inwardly. Just because the man is so much more…male than you anticipated, that’s no reason to get in such a state. But, as she watched Garrick remove his jacket and deftly roll up the sleeves of the shirt he was wearing, she couldn’t help wishing that she had never listened to Camilla’s suggestion that she hire a male nanny to take care of little Michael.

Bathe him, she had said, and Garrick thanked his lucky stars that his mother’s preoccupation with infants had ensured that he had observed the bathtime routine often enough as a child and teenager to have retained some knowledge of what ought to be done.

Let’s face it, Garrick told himself, Kate Oakley probably didn’t have much more idea of how to take care of a small child than he did himself.

A dedicated career woman was how his data described her, and from the information he had been given he had formed the impression that she would be much harder, much, much more abrasive than she was turning out to be. Already he had discerned that there were certain anomalies about her…certain vulnerabilities that she tried desperately hard to conceal.

He took hold of Michael and started to undress him.

Kate watched impassively, but secretly just a little pleased, while Michael kicked and wriggled. The man didn’t seem to be too familiar with the poppers on Michael’s clothes, but his hands were gentle when he touched and held the little boy, she had to admit that, and she had to turn away from the sight of those male hands struggling with the small clothes. It brought back memories she wanted to suppress…memories of a time when she herself had been a much-loved part of a close family unit. A time before her world had been turned upside-down and her parents had left her…deserted her without any explanation, without any warning.

She noticed the faint grimace the man gave as he removed Michael’s wet nappy, and suspected that she was probably right in thinking that he had never taken care of such a very young child before.

All her earlier doubts came sweeping back, and she stepped forward protectively, ready to snatch Michael away from him.

‘I’m not sure that this is a good idea,’ she said unsteadily. ‘Michael is very young…’

She gave him a firmly dismissive smile and reached for her godson, but the man refused to let him go.

‘Yes. He is small for his age, isn’t he?’ he agreed, deliberately misunderstanding her. ‘Premature, was he?’

Garrick knew quite well that Michael had been premature, but he saw from Kate’s face that his remark had startled her.

‘Yes. Yes, he was a little,’she agreed reluctantly.

Without a word Garrick picked Michael up and carried him over to his waiting bath. Once there, he asked Kate over his shoulder, ‘And his father…what part does he play in Michael’s life?’

There was no harm in turning the screw just a little, he told himself, justifying his underhand actions with his conviction that Michael would be better off with him.

‘Michael’s parents are dead,’ she told him quietly, the pallor of her skin making him feel uncomfortably guilty. He hadn’t expected her to show such distress. He knew she had been close to Jennifer. The report had told him that much; they had, after all, grown up together in the children’s home, but he had gained the impression from the report that she rather tended to keep people at an emotional distance, and he had formed the opinion that she would look upon the responsibility of Michael as an unwanted one. Now he wondered uneasily if he had been too sanguine in his assumptions.

To cover his own inner disquiet, he said quickly, ‘So he isn’t really your child, then?’

Not really hers! Kate caught her breath on an unsteady shock of tension, increased by her awareness of just how much she feared and resented the assumption behind the casual words. Michael was hers…When she thought of Michael, she thought of him as being her child, she recognised. She loved him, and not just because of Jen.

Panic bit into her…the kind of panic she always experienced at the thought of allowing anyone to come too close to her emotionally, but where Michael was concerned it was already too late.

She heard the man saying calmly, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.’

And she focused on him, her body as taut as a bow string as she fought off the feelings threatening her.

‘You didn’t,’ she denied shortly, hoping he would drop the subject. To her dismay, he didn’t.

‘You must have been very close to the boy’s parents. He doesn’t look like you, though,’ he added, looking first at her and then at Michael.

Kate drew a sharp breath, aching to simply demand that he leave. He had no right to ask her these questions, to pry into her life. And then she tried to control her reactions and remind herself that he was simply trying to do his job and that it was only natural that he should want to have as much information as possible about Michael.

Taking a deep breath, she said as calmly as she could, ‘Michael isn’t a blood relative. He’s the child of a very close friend. She and her husband were killed in a motorway accident.’

‘I’m sorry.’ He wasn’t looking at her now, whether out of compassion or simply by accident, she wasn’t sure. ‘It can’t be easy for you…a single woman suddenly having a baby thrust into your life. Doesn’t he have any family?’

He was probing too deeply now, but there was nothing she could do to stop him without betraying herself. She could feel the old, familiar tension building up inside her stomach. She wanted to tremble with the force of it, but she had long ago learned to control that reaction.

‘Not really,’ she told him shortly. ‘Jen and I are…were both orphans. We grew up together in a children’s home. Alan, Jen’s husband, was an only child, his parents are dead, and I believe there is a distant family connection…a second cousin.’

‘Orphans,’ Garrick mused, ignoring the reference to himself. ‘I see.’

Here was his chance to subtly undermine her self-confidence by pointing out that as an orphan she was hardly qualified to act as a substitute family to such a young child…to ask her if she didn’t think Michael would be better off in the care of someone who could communicate to him through their own experiences, just what it meant to be part of a loving family.

Whatever else he might or might not be…however cynical his views on marriage had become over the years, he could never doubt the happiness that his parents had had…nor dismiss the love and security they had given him as a child.

It would be oh, so easy to make some idle comment that would increase the doubts he could see so clearly shadowing her eyes…to reinforce what he was beginning to suspect was her own private fear that she was not an adequate parent for Michael, but to his own consternation he found that he simply could not do it. He was as amazed by the recognition of his weakness as he would have been to discover that the world had suddenly turned upside-down.

This couldn’t be him, deliberately holding back on beginning his campaign to win Michael away from her, simply because he had looked into her eyes and seen the lonely, proud child she must once have been, fighting desperately to pretend that nothing was wrong…that her world hadn’t been destroyed…that she wasn’t….

He shook his head, wanting to dispel the unwanted images. What was happening to him? What was wrong with him? He must be going soft in the head.

‘What’s wrong?’ Kate demanded suspiciously, her tension increasing as she sensed his hesitancy and knew instinctively that it had something to do with her.

‘I was just thinking how very hard it must have been for you as a child,’ he said quietly. ‘And how much Michael must mean to you.’

Later he would ask himself what on earth had come over him, what on earth he had thought he was doing, but in the moment he said the words he saw the fury and panic fight for supremacy in Kate’s eyes, and he reacted instinctively to them, reaching out his hand to touch her in an age-old gesture of comfort.

Even before he touched her, Kate froze, and immediately Garrick realised what he was doing and cursed himself under his breath. What the hell was happening to him? He must be going soft in the head, feeling sorry for her.

A nanny…God, he could just imagine what the press would do to him if they ever found out!

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