THE WEDDING CHALLENGE

Chased to the altar—three independent cousins swept off their feet by the most eligible Englishmen!

Pepper, Izzy and Jemima Jane are cousins—with nothing in common except the gorgeous red hair they’ve inherited from their grandmother! They even grew up on different continents: Pepper is heiress to an American business empire, Izzy and JJ shared their very English childhood as adopted sisters….

But do they have more in common than they realize?

For the first time in their lives, the three cousins find themselves together: as a family, as friends, as business partners. And they’re about to discover that they’re not so different from each other after all!

Pepper, Izzy and JJ are thoroughly modern women, determined to be ruled by the head, not the heart. Now their lives are turned upside down as each meets a man who challenges them to let love into their lives—with dramatic consequences!

Pepper has an unexpected encounter in The Independent Bride.

Look out for Izzy’s story in The Accidental Mistress and JJ’s in The Duke’s Proposal.

Dear Reader,

This book was born in a wine bar. I was with two friends who I really thought had got life sussed. Then a smoky-voiced singer started singing about fields of barley, and we all went quiet. Yes, we could run our lives, pay our bills, have fun. But….

Modern women can handle anything. Well, that’s what we tell ourselves. Most of the time it’s true, too. But when you’re in love you’re on your own in a strange country without a compass. And everyone else looks as if they know exactly what they’re doing.

Cousins Pepper, Izzy and Jemima Jane are young, vibrant, successful—and when love strikes it doesn’t make a blind bit of difference. Though they’re not admitting it, of course. Especially not to each other!

I really love these women. And I sympathize with them. Been there, done that; still wince when I think about some of it. And I am so glad they get their happy ending. Hope you are, too!

Best wishes

Sophie Weston

The Independent Bride
Sophie Weston

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

THE last of the overnight flights out of JFK to London was about to board. The departure lounge was crowded to overflowing, but even so one alert journalist was scanning the faces carefully. Rewarded, he caught his breath with excitement.

He nudged his companion in the ribs. ‘Did you see who that was?’

The companion was a generation older than the keen young television correspondent; it took a lot to get him excited. Besides, he had made a career out of not being impressed by anyone. ‘If you mean Steven Konig, I saw him on the main concourse.’

The younger man swung round. ‘Really? Konig—the food for famine guy? He’s here? Where?’

‘They boarded him first,’ said the other, bored.

‘Oh, that’s who it was! I thought it must be royalty.’ The younger man had a point to prove, too. ‘You do know it was the top brass escorting him?’

His companion got even more bored. ‘If you mean David Guber, he and Konig go way back. They were students at Oxford together.’

That would silence the upstart, he thought.

But it didn’t. Amazingly, the younger man’s chagrin lasted only a few seconds before he was bouncing back, eager as a puppy.

‘I didn’t catch Konig, but I did catch someone a lot more interesting.’ He paused expectantly.

The older man yawned.

‘The Tiger Cub,’ said up-and-coming television financial newsman tantalisingly. And sat back, waiting to be asked ‘Who or what is the Tiger Cub?’

It did not come.

It would be too much to say that the older man sat bolt upright and looked keenly round the lounge. Excitement, after all, was not his bag. But there was no doubt his journalist’s antennae twitched.

‘The Calhoun girl?’ he said, after a moment.

‘Pepper Calhoun, yes,’ said his companion, disappointed but still fighting. At least he knew that Penelope Anne Calhoun was called Pepper by her intimates.

The older man stared into the middle distance, his eyes narrowed. ‘That’s interesting,’ he said at last.

‘Yes, that’s what I thought. Do you think Calhoun Carter are going on the acquisition trail in the UK? I can think of a couple of retail companies ripe for acquisition.’ He smacked his lips at the thought, especially as he could be the first back to London with the news. At least, he could if Sandy Franks was as indifferent as he seemed.

But Sandy Franks was still thinking aloud. ‘The last I heard, the girl wasn’t working for Calhoun Carter. Mary Ellen Calhoun has been telling people that her granddaughter is going to gain experience in the outside world before coming back into the company for good.’

‘You believe that?’

‘It’s possible.’ He sucked his teeth, pondering. ‘Maybe Pepper Calhoun has decided to do her own thing. Visit the sights. Have a fling with the boyfriend. What is she? Twenty-six? Twenty-seven? She’s got a right to party a bit before she settles down to a life of corporate greed.’

‘The Tiger Cub?’ Young and eager Martin Tammery laughed heartily at the naïveté of experience. ‘She doesn’t party. Her idea of a good time is an eighteen-hour day topped off by a night of conference calls. And she hasn’t had a boyfriend since business school.’

‘Then she’ll be ripe for a romantic interlude,’ said experience with conviction.

His companion stayed unconvinced. ‘The one thing that is absolutely certain about Pepper Calhoun is that she doesn’t do romance. Never has. Never will.’

‘How can you be sure?’

‘She’s going to inherit one of the retail giants. I’ve been keeping a file on her since she went to her first prom. Believe me, she is her grandmother’s heir in every way there is. Brain like a computer, tongue like a razor, heart like outer space.’

The older man blinked. ‘Run that past me again? What’s outer space got to do with Pepper Calhoun?’

‘They’re both cold and empty,’ said the other with feeling. ‘And totally inaccessible.’

CHAPTER ONE

WHAT a difference a week makes!

Penelope Anne Calhoun rested her tired red head against the wall of the departure lounge and tried to be philosophical.

Exactly a week ago today she had thought she was nicely on track for the rest of her life. She’d had friends she trusted, a new project she believed in, and the best address in New York.

There had been just the one tiny cloud on the horizon, and Pepper had been sure she could deal with that. Well, eventually. When she had to. When the final funding for Out of the Attic was in place and she could go to her grandmother and say, This is what I’m going to do.

It was not as if they hadn’t tried to warn her.

‘Pepper, are you sure this is a good idea?’ her old mentor from business school had asked. ‘I mean—concept shopping! Love the idea. But what happens when your grandmother finds out?’

And she said, so airily, so positively, ‘Nothing will happen.’

She could see the professor was dubious. ‘Are you sure of that?’

And she was. She was. ‘Absolutely,’ Pepper said with total assurance.

‘Mrs Calhoun won’t see it as a rival to Calhoun Carter?’

Pepper laughed heartily. ‘CC has branches in every major city in the US and five overseas countries. Beside CC, Out of the Attic is a minnow. No—less than a minnow. It’s plankton to a whale.’

‘That’s not quite what I meant,’ said her teacher dryly. ‘I was thinking more of a rival suitor.’

And, heaven help her, she had even laughed at that.

‘Okay. Maybe she’ll kick up a little at first. But she’ll see it my way eventually. She knows I have to prove myself.’

‘Does she?’

‘Yup,’ Pepper had said, with the total confidence of a woman who had been Mary Ellen Calhoun’s little princess since she was eight. ‘My grandmother wants what’s best for me. You see, she loves me.’

The guy hadn’t said any more. Pepper had felt quite sorry for him, out-argued by his own pupil like that. She had taken him out to a spectacular gourmet dinner to make it up to him.

And how wrong she had been. How wrong.

She first realised that things weren’t going to plan the day that Ed kidnapped her.

She wasn’t scared. Of course she wasn’t. She had known Ed Ivanov all her life. Anyway, Calhouns didn’t scare easy. Pepper was a Calhoun right the way through to that cool business brain of hers.

So she kept her head and stayed calm.

‘What’s this about, Ed?’

But he just shook his head. The noise in the helicopter made a great excuse.

Pepper looked down at unfamiliar rolling countryside and tried to guess where they were. A long way from New York by now. Ed had got her into the ’copter, saying he wanted her to meet some potential investors. Ed was one of the tiny group of trusted friends who knew about Out of the Attic.

So she’d gone with him without a second thought.

By the time they were well out of the metropolitan area, following a river valley, she was having second thoughts all right. Ed hadn’t mentioned investors again. In fact Ed wasn’t talking much at all.

When Pepper had walked off with the Year Prize at business school, it had been for a paper on problem solving. So she said to herself, Right, Pepper, solve this.

She tapped him on the arm, and when he turned mouthed at him carefully, ‘There are only three reasons for you to do this. Ransom. Ungovernable passion. You’ve gone mad. Which is it?’

But he waved a hundred-dollar manicure to indicate the noise of the rotor arms and did not answer.

Pepper shook her head. Unless he had been fired in the last twenty-four hours, Ed did not need money. He was a successful Wall Street analyst. And the idea of passion was laughable. They had dated briefly at business school but it had ended peaceably and neither of them had a broken heart.

Or, Ed’s beach readings, she remembered, ran to highly coloured adventure stories. Maybe he was whisking her off for a secret weekend as a prelude to another proposal of marriage? She looked at him. He was peering at the valley below the helicopter, nibbling at a nail.

Romantic? Ed? Nah!

She considered him from under her long lashes. They were surprisingly dark compared with her flame-red hair. One of her few good points, she always said. Pepper was realistic about her lack of attractions.

Which was another reason why she didn’t think passion had driven Ed to enforced seduction. He did not look at her. He did not touch her. In fact, he was behaving more like a transcontinental courier with an awkward package than a man in love.

Anyway, surely even Ed wouldn’t think that kidnapping a woman was a good way to persuade her to marry him?

And then the helicopter came down in the middle of a clearing and Ed started talking again.

‘This is my father’s fishing cabin,’ he said and helped her out.

Keep it light, she told herself. Keep it light. ‘Since when do I fish?’

He did not look mad. He gave her a slightly harassed smile. ‘We’re just up here for a meeting. I told you.’

That was when Pepper started to get a really bad feeling about the trip.

She hid it. ‘Do I need my visual aids?’ she said dryly. She had brought all the stuff with her for a really great presentation of Out of the Attic.

He shook his head.

‘Somehow, you don’t surprise me,’ she said with irony. ‘Okay. Lead on.’

It was really quite a simple cabin—single storey, in need of repair. The way down to it was full of puddles, too. Her shiny black city pumps, discreetly plain and shockingly expensive, were never going to be the same again. Still, at least she didn’t take a tumble—unlike Ed.

Rain dripped through the trees. It soaked Pepper’s hair until the elegant auburn pleat turned black and flattened on the top of her head. It darkened the shoulders of her designer label navy jacket. She felt an uncomfortable trickle down the neck of her pearl silk blouse. But it wasn’t the spring rain that sent chills up and down her spine.

‘If the CIA are trying to recruit me, you can tell them now—no dice.’

But it was not the CIA, any more than it was the nonexistent investors. Or Ed in romantic excess.

It was someone who was coming out onto the rough stoop at the sound of their approach.

It was her grandmother.

All desire to find humour in the situation left Pepper abruptly. She stopped dead. The look she turned on Ed was hot enough to melt asbestos.

Bad conscience made Ed peevish. ‘No need to be so dramatic. It’s just business.’

Pepper was very pale. ‘No, Ed. It’s my life.’

He looked down his nose. ‘Now you’re talking like a teen queen.’

She looked back at the cabin. Mary Ellen Calhoun was watching them attentively. Even in the wet spring woods she was wearing Paris design and diamonds. Pepper saw the gleam of Venetian earnings under her grandmother’s cap of skilfully tinted dark hair. Mary Ellen Calhoun was seventy-three but she would go to her grave a brunette.

Pepper said, ‘What did my grandmother promise you to get me here?’

He looked genuinely shocked. ‘Nothing. She just wanted me to stop you making a big mistake.’

‘It’s a mistake to back my own idea? I thought that was why we went to business school.’

‘Look, Pepper,’ he said patiently, ‘Out of the Attic is a retail start-up. That’s five years of your life, minimum. Mary Ellen doesn’t want to wait five years to get you back on board at Calhoun Carter.’

‘Since when do you call her Mary Ellen? You been talking to her a lot recently, Ed?’

He winced. ‘Not really. We—er—bumped into each other at a charity reception a couple of weeks ago…’

‘My grandmother doesn’t go to charity receptions for fun,’ said Pepper dispassionately. ‘And she never bumps into anyone.’

He looked at her, half-defiant, half-ashamed. Pepper squared her shoulders.

‘Oh, well, it had to happen some time, I guess. Wait here,’ she told Ed quietly. ‘This is not going to be pretty.’

The moment she came face to face with her grandmother Pepper knew what was going to happen. One look and she just knew.

It was there, in Mary Ellen’s black currant eyes. Mary Ellen wanted the last of the Calhouns back on the board. Like now.

Not that you could tell that from her behaviour. Mary Ellen came forward, hands out, smiling, just as she always did. Glutinously innocent. Pepper had learned to distrust that innocence the way she would distrust a basking snake.

Of course, Mary Ellen was not your average grandmother. She had been President of Calhoun Carter since her husband had died thirty-three years ago. That sort of thing gave you an edge. Pepper might distrust her, but she respected her, too. And she was realising that she was fighting for her life.

She did not take the hands held out to her. She said quietly, ‘Hello, Grandmother.’

Mary Ellen looked startled. It was a voice she did not recognise.

Not surprising, thought Pepper. She didn’t recognise it herself.

‘It’s good to see you, honey,’ Mary Ellen said in her soft, deceptive, ladylike tones.

‘No, it isn’t. It’s business,’ said Pepper grimly. ‘Spare me the fancy stuff. Get on with it.’

The two women’s eyes locked.

Then Mary Ellen gave the tinkling laugh she had perfected in the days when she was a popular debutante; before she’d married her way out of impoverished gentility; before she’d hijacked her husband’s company and became a ruthless tycoon.

‘Then you’d better come in out of the rain,’ she said with a charming pout.

‘And Ed?’ Pepper was mocking. ‘Do you want him in out of the rain as well?’

Mary Ellen frowned. ‘He’s a man. A little rain won’t kill him.’

‘Thought you wouldn’t want any witnesses.’ Pepper nodded.

Mary Ellen did not deign to answer that. She stalked inside like an empress. And the moment the door closed behind her granddaughter she abandoned innocence, ladylike charm and the pout all in one go. Suddenly she looked what she was, thought Pepper. Seventy-three years old and mean as a snake.

Pepper drew a deep breath. ‘Okay. Fire away. I can see that you’ve heard about Out of the Attic. What do you think can do to stop me?’

Mary Ellen smiled. ‘I’ve already done it.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Really, you are such a child. I told the finance department to put it around that anyone who lent money to you could kiss goodbye to Carter Calhoun business. For ever.’

Pepper went very still. ‘I see. I suppose they were doing that this morning? That’s why you had Ed get me out of town? So I wouldn’t be there if anyone wanted to call me to check?’

Mary Ellen shrugged. ‘What’s to check?’

But Pepper knew she was right. Mary Ellen had made sure Pepper was out of the way when the news broke in case she found a way to fight back.

‘You always did fight dirty,’ Pepper said. ‘Why didn’t I remember that?’

Mary Ellen was impatient. ‘I want you back in the firm. You know that. This little idea of yours is just a waste of time.’ She opened her electronic organiser. ‘Shall we say—middle of next week? That will give you time to move out of that nasty apartment and get yourself home, where you belong. I’ll tell Jim to organise you an office.’

‘No,’ said Pepper quietly.

Mary Ellen extracted the stylus and tapped in a deliberate note. ‘Seven forty-five on Wednesday,’ she said, as if Pepper hadn’t spoken. ‘Go to the plant and ask for Connie. She’s the Human Resources Manager now. She’ll find—’

Pepper raised her voice. ‘I said no.’

The inside of the cabin was very dusty, but Mary Ellen had cleaned up a corner for herself. Typically it was the best chair in the room. And it was set at the desk. She sat down now and steepled her fingertips.

‘You don’t have a choice,’ she said calmly. ‘Your little business is a busted flush. Who else but me would employ you?’

Pepper stared. Her thoughts whirled like a rising storm.

I thought she loved me. She doesn’t. She just loves making everyone dance to her tune. How on earth did I miss that?

It hurt. It really hurt.

‘Let me spell it out for you,’ said Mary Ellen. She sounded almost motherly.

That truly sickened Pepper. For a moment she could not speak.

Mary Ellen misunderstood her silence. Mary Ellen thought she had won. But then Mary Ellen always did win.

‘Look at it this way. You’re the last Calhoun. Anyone in the retail business is going to think you’re a spy. A business in any other sector will just think you have to be a liability or you’d be in the family firm where you belong. It’s a nobrainer.’

Pepper was shaking. ‘A no-brainer,’ she agreed with heavy irony.

Mary Ellen gave her famously charming, naughty child smile. ‘Sure,’ she agreed. ‘Glad you see it so clearly. Your little idea is dead. You won’t get funding from anyone in North America.’ She tapped the organiser. ‘See you Wednesday.’

Pepper drew a deep breath. Get a grip, she told herself feverishly, get a grip. Lose your temper and she’s won. She already thinks she’s won. This is your last chance…

And she said quietly, ‘No.’

She was right. Mary Ellen had been quite sure that she had won. She did not believe that Pepper would hold out. Startled, furious, disbelieving, she went on the attack. Mary Ellen Calhoun on the attack did not take prisoners.

Pepper just stood there, under an assault of words like hailstones. In the end they all came back to the same point. Pepper was Calhoun Carter Industries’ property, bought and paid for over years. The very best education money could buy had seen to that. Along with the house in the South of France, the condo in New York, the South Sea Island mountain retreat, her suite in the Calhoun mansion…

Pepper hung on to cool reason but it was an effort. ‘But they aren’t mine.’

Mary Ellen showed her teeth in a shark’s smile. ‘Got it at last!’

Oh, Pepper got it. Slowly. Reluctantly. With disbelief. But she got it.

‘You mean that all the stuff you’ve given me over the years—’

‘Invested,’ corrected Mary Ellen coldly. ‘You are an investment. Nothing more.’

If Pepper had been pale before, she was ashen now. This was the woman who had introduced her at parties as ‘my little princess’?

Mary Ellen smiled. ‘Think about it. The European schools. The year in Paris. Seed corn. I even arranged for you to go to business school five years younger than everyone else, so you wouldn’t want time out when the company needed you.’

Pepper was outraged. ‘The business school took me on my own merits. I won a prize, for God’s sake.’

Mary Ellen mocked that, too. ‘Problem solving! When did you ever solve a problem? All your problems have been bought off by Calhoun money.’

That was when Mary Ellen listed them. Not just the right schools, the right clothes, the right apartments, the right friends. The senior businessmen who had taken her calls and talked to her like an equal. The junior businessmen who had dated her…

Dated…?

Pepper gulped. Her blouse was not just damp and cold any more. It was icy. A cascade of icicles was thundering down her spine. She was shivering so much she could hardly speak.

‘What do you mean? What have my dates got to do with this?’

Mary Ellen saw that she had scored a hit. Her eyes gleamed.

‘You have no idea what it cost me to get you a social life,’ she went on with that trill of laughter that was her trademark. It was very musical, very ladylike. But the eyes that met Pepper’s across the dusty old cabin were not ladylike in the least.

Even so—dated?

‘You’re nothing but a potato,’ said Mary Ellen, light and cruel and suddenly horribly believable. ‘Who would bother with you if you weren’t my grandchild?’

Pepper was the first to admit that she was not fashionably slender, but she had always thought she was good company. That her friends liked her for that. She said so.

Mary Ellen’s hard little eyes snapped. ‘And I suppose you think that one day you’ll meet Prince Charming and get married, too? Grow up!’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘You have only one chance to be a bride,’ said Mary Ellen, showing her teeth like a shark. ‘And that’s if I buy you a husband. After all those mercy dates I paid for, I’ve got a good long list of candidates.’

That was when Pepper knew that she could not take any more. There was no point in even trying. With a superhuman effort, she told her icy muscles to stop shaking and move. And she walked out.

Mary Ellen was not expecting it. ‘Where are you going?’ she yelled, suddenly not even pretending to be ladylike any more.

Pepper did not stop. She went running, scrambling up the soggy path, to where Ed was sitting.

Her grandmother ran after her, but halted at the point where the path began to climb.

‘You get back here this minute,’ she yelled.

Pepper did not stop. Not even when she fell to one knee. Not even when she felt her pantyhose tear and blood trickle down her shin. She didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything but getting away from the grandmother whose affection had been a lie right from the start.

By the time she reached Ed, she was panting. ‘Take me back to New York,’ she said. ‘Take me back now.’

He hesitated, but only for a moment. It would have taken a braver man than Ed Ivanov to face Mary Ellen in this mood. He took Pepper’s arm and hurried her towards the clearing where the helicopter was waiting.

Ladylike, five foot two, Mary Ellen had a voice like a bass drum when roused. It reached them easily. So did the fury.

‘You’ll never make it on your own, Penelope Anne Calhoun, do you hear me? I own you.’

A week later, Pepper knew exactly how true that was. So she leaned against the wall, skulking down as a party of VIPs swept onto the London plane in advance of everyone else. She did not care about VIPs, but there was an outside chance that they might recognise her. After all, Mary Ellen was a VIP. As the Calhoun heir, Pepper had been one too for most of her life.

Well, that was all over now. A good thing, too, she told herself.

She would get to London. She would put together a new life. And she would survive.

All she had to do was keep clear of VIPs.

‘Professor Konig?’ The flight attendant had obviously been waiting for them. She was instantly alert, full of professional smiles. ‘Welcome on board, sir. This way.’

The VIP and the airline director followed her.

‘So that’s what you get in first class,’ Steven Konig muttered to David Guber. ‘Instant name-check and personal escort to your seat.’

The attendant took his jacket and the ticket stub to label it, and left her boss to do the formal farewells. Steven looked after her.

‘Is it enough to justify the cost, I ask myself?’

The other man smiled. ‘You old Puritan! Still working on the principle I’m uncomfortable therefore I am?’

Steven laughed. ‘You may be right.’

Dave punched his arm lightly. ‘You’re important enough to fly the Atlantic without having your knees under your nose any more, Steven. Live with it.’

‘Can I quote you?’ Steven was dry.

Dave Guber was not only a long-standing friend, he was a main board member of this airline. He grinned, ‘If you do, I’ll sue.’ He shook hands and added soberly, ‘I mean it. I’m really grateful, Steven. You saved our butts.’

Steven shook his head, disclaiming.

‘Yes, you did. If you hadn’t come through for me we’d have had a conference and no keynote speaker. Great speech, too.’

Steven shrugged. ‘I was glad to do it. I’ve wanted to do a think piece on the subject for a long time.’

‘Yeah, sure. Like you haven’t got enough to fill your time already.’

‘No, I mean it,’ Steven insisted. ‘It makes a change.’ He gave a rueful smile. ‘It seems like all I do these days is meetings, meetings, meetings. It was really nice just to sit down and think for once.’

Dave Guber looked quizzical. ‘Wish you were only doing one job again?’

‘Chairman of Kplant is my job,’ Steven told him drily. ‘Being Master of Queen Margaret’s isn’t a job; it’s a vocation. Ask the Dean.’

They both grinned. They understood each other perfectly. They had first met at Queen Margaret’s College, Oxford, as students years ago. And they had both been fined by the Dean regularly for standard student bad behaviour.

Dave cocked an eyebrow. ‘He isn’t glad to see you back?’

‘Spitting tintacks,’ agreed Steven, amused.

‘That must make life peaceful.’

‘Hey, if I wanted peace I’d have stayed in the lab. You say goodbye to peace the moment you open your own company.’

Dave’s career had been with big international corporates. He looked at his friend curiously. ‘Is it worth it?’

‘It’s great,’ said Steven. There was no mistaking his enthusiasm.

‘You never want to slow down?’ Dave asked tentatively.

Slowing down was heresy in business, of course. But he remembered the gorgeous blonde whom Steven had dated all those years ago. No one mentioned her any more. Nobody linked his name with anyone else, either. Dave thought he had never met anyone as lonely as Steven Konig.

‘Do you never think about—er—a family, maybe?’

Steven’s face changed. He didn’t frown exactly. He just withdrew—very slightly, very politely. Suddenly Dave wasn’t talking to his old buddy any more. He was taking formal leave of an international figure.

Dave sighed and gave up.

‘Well, don’t forget you’re going to come and stay with us the very next vacation you get. Marise and I are counting on it.’

Vacation? Steven managed to repress a hollow laugh.

‘Sure thing,’ he said. It was vague enough not to count as a promise. Steven always kept his promises, so he didn’t hand them out lightly.

‘I’ll hold you to that.’

Steven gave his sudden smile, the one that made him look just like the student who had once worked out how to set off fireworks by remote control from Queen Margaret’s venerable tower. His eyes were vivid with amusement.

‘I’ll put it in the five-year plan.’

Dave flung up his hands in mock despair. ‘You’re crazy.’

‘You said it yourself. I’m a Big Name,’ Steven said crisply. ‘For that, there’s a price.’

David Guber was an important man, with stock options and the power to hire and fire. But he wasn’t Steven Konig, who had single-handedly taken his food research business from the small companies sector to the big time. The press fell over themselves to interview Steven Konig in five continents. Of course there was going to be a price.

Dave sighed. ‘Well, if you ever get off the carousel come see us,’ he said. And to the glamorous flight attendant, who still hovered, ‘Make sure Professor Konig has the journey of his life. We owe this man, big time.’ He pumped his hand again. ‘You’re a great guy, Steven. Have a good flight.’

Steven was already opening his briefcase before Guber had left the plane.

‘Can I get you anything, Professor?’ the attendant asked.

Steven bit back a wry smile. So Dave Guber thought he ought to date, did he? How was a man to do that when every woman he met called him Professor? Or Chairman? Or even, God help him, Master?

‘A drink?’ The flight attendant knew her duty to the friend of a boss so big she had only ever seen him on video before. ‘Coffee?’

Steven gave her his ordinary smile, the one he used when more than half his mind was elsewhere. ‘No, thank you.’

‘A warm towel?’ pressed the flight attendant, trying hard.

‘Nothing.’ He corrected that. ‘You’ll give me everything I need if you just keep other people away.’

He had caught sight of several British delegates from the conference in the airport. He could just see them grabbing the chance of a transatlantic flight to buttonhole him. Experience had taught him that someone always wanted advice they didn’t listen to or the name of contacts whom they misused.

He said with feeling, ‘I’d really appreciate some peace.’

‘You’ve got it,’ said the flight attendant, relieved.

Steven worked until long after the attendants had put out the cabin lights and his fellow passengers had composed themselves for sleep. He finished making notes on the monthly statements of Kplant, dictated two memos and a letter, and then skimmed the agenda for the next college meeting. Finishing that, he looked at his watch. Space for two hours’ sleep if he was sensible.

And I’m always sensible, thought Steven wryly. With two jobs, three titles and more responsibilities than he could shake a stick at, he had to be.

He stretched out on the wonder of a first-class transcontinental airline bed and clicked off his overhead light. He was asleep in seconds.

Pepper had never flown coach before. It was an experience, she thought grimly.

The seat was uncomfortably tight. The woman in the next seat kept jabbing her in the ribs and maintained an agitated monologue until she finally fell asleep. And in the row behind a party of young entrepreneurs were drinking and laughing loudly about some conference they had been to in New York. By the time the cabin crew had finally settled them down Pepper knew that sleep was hopeless.

Suppose that’s the price of running away, she told herself, with an attempt at humour. No more business class for you.

Only it didn’t make her laugh. Not even smile. In fact she felt her stomach clench as if she had just swallowed a glassful of ice. And not because of the loss of luxury.

I am not running away. I am not running away.

Pepper winced. Even in her head she sounded defensive.

Who are you kidding, Pepper? Of course you’re running away!

She shivered—then pulled the thin flight blanket up to her chin. It made her feel a bit warmer but it did not stop the inner turmoil.

She had always known that crossing her grandmother was a risk. But she had never suspected the lengths that Mary Ellen would go to.

Because I still thought I was her little princess! I thought she loved me. What an idiot I was. What a blind, naïve idiot. And I thought I was so street-smart!

Mary Ellen’s revenge had not been subtle. It had been fast.

Within two days of their secret meeting Pepper had notice to quit her apartment. Well, she had expected that; her grandmother had rented it to her in the first place. She had not expected to find her appointment diary suddenly emptying. Or the company that rented her office space suddenly demanding that she pay a year’s rent up-front or leave in a week. Or to have her platinum credit card suddenly withdrawn.

She had tried to speak to Mary Ellen. But her grandmother had refused to take her calls. So Pepper had gone to the Calhoun Carter building.

Mary Ellen refused to see her. More, she’d kept her waiting for half an hour, then had the security force escort her from the building under guard.

Pepper had not believed it. ‘Why?’ she had said to Mary Ellen’s PA. She had known Carmen all her life.

Carmen had tears in her eyes but she did not stop the uniformed guards.

‘Everyone will think I’ve been stealing from her,’ Pepper said, still too bewildered to be indignant.

Carmen looked as if she were going to cry in earnest. ‘That’s why.’

‘You mean—’ Pepper struggled with it. ‘This is a publicity stunt?’

‘Mrs Calhoun says you want independence, you’ve got it.’ Carmen sounded as if she had learned it off by heart. And as if she were eating glass.

‘You mean she wants to destroy my credibility,’ said Pepper slowly. ‘Oh, Carmen!’

The PA blew her nose. ‘Better go quietly, Pepper. You don’t want to make the evening news.’

So Pepper went.

She went back to her apartment, sat down and made a list of what she had got going for her. It was frighteningly little—a good business brain, a wardrobe of executive suits, enough money to live for six months if she was careful, and the ability to speak three languages. Oh, and a really good project in Out of the Attic. Only her grandmother was going to make sure that Out of the Attic never came to market.

She was packing when the doorbell rang. She checked through the spy hole. Ed?

She opened the door. ‘What do you want, Ed?’ she said wearily.

He divested himself of his overcoat and sat down on the sofa, taking her with him. He took her hand and held onto it.

Pepper snatched it back. ‘You don’t have to look like that. Nobody died.’

But Ed went on looking honest and remorseful.

‘Not yet. But your career is damn nearly gone,’ he said frankly. ‘Why don’t you make it up with Mary Ellen? It’s crazy to throw away Calhoun Carter for a whim. You were born for business.’

Pepper flinched. ‘And not for Prince Charming,’ she said savagely.

Ed was disconcerted. ‘What?’

She took a deep breath. ‘Will you tell me something, Ed?’

‘If I can.’

‘When we went out together—was I a mercy date?’

He hesitated just a fraction too long.

So her grandmother had not lied. Pepper had hoped against hope that it was one of Mary Ellen’s snaky tricks. But clearly it was the simple truth.

‘Thank you,’ she said quietly. ‘Goodbye, Ed.’

It was a night when Pepper despaired. She had never felt more lonely in her life.

It was also the night that she decided. She had to go somewhere nobody would care that she was Mary Ellen Calhoun’s granddaughter. And if that looked like running away, tough.

She put her life in order faster than she would have believed possible. She got rid of furniture. Gave away her books and CDs. Said goodbye to the two or three people who would care and was out of the apartment before Mary Ellen could send in someone in uniform to evict her.

So this was where she found out whether she deserved her prize for problem solving, Pepper thought wryly now, as one by one even the partying entrepreneurs in the row behind fell asleep.

If she did, she would survive in London. She would set up Out of the Attic in England instead of the States.

And find Prince Charming?

Pepper closed her eyes. No need to get over-ambitious, she told herself. I think you can say goodbye to that one. There, at least, Mary Ellen had proved to be right.

And I never want another mercy date if I live to be a hundred.

In the first-class section, Steven Konig came awake the moment the smell of coffee began to waft through the cabin. Everyone else was still slumbering under doused lights. But the flight attendant saw him stir. She came over.

‘Professor?’

He sat up, rubbing his eyes.

‘It starts with my alarm call now, does it?’

She was bewildered. ‘I’m sorry, Professor?’

Steven said wearily, ‘Could you just lay off Professoring me until I’ve had my orange juice?’

She did not understand. ‘No need to move just yet if you don’t want to, sir,’ she said softly. ‘We’ve got more than an hour until we land.’

He smiled at her, shaking himself free of the airline blankets and pillows. ‘No, that’s fine. I’ve got work to do. And I always like to see the sunrise.’

She nodded and went back to her galley. No one else in the business class cabin stirred. The smell of coffee intensified.

When did I last wake up to the smell of coffee? Steven thought. That holiday in Tuscany with the Cooper family when I’d just got the Chair of Business Innovation? Five years ago? Six? Become a success—give up someone making you coffee in the morning!

He gave a dry smile and ran his hand over his chin. He had a heavy beard. Years ago, Courtney had told him that she went to bed with Don Juan and woke up with the Pirate King. That was when she’d still been in his life and they were laughing about their secret love affair. Before she’d decided that rich kid Tom Underwood was a better bet than a man who had to put himself through his PhD as a petrol pump attendant. It hadn’t mattered to Courtney that Tom was his best friend. But then it hadn’t mattered to Courtney that Steven loved her, either.

Well, all that was a long time ago. These days he tried to look like a smooth businessman at all times. He went to the softly lit first-class bathroom to freshen up.

But on the point of shaving off the morning’s beard he stopped. He’d been on duty at that damned conference for over a week. All that time he had been shaving twice a day, listening to boring papers, making small talk with elliptical officials and never, ever exchanging a word with anyone that wasn’t about business. He was tired of behaving.

Arrested, Steven considered his mirrored image. He ran a thoughtful hand over the dark stubble. He looked like a gunslinger in an old movie, he thought, amused. Not a chairman. Never a master of an Oxford college. Above all not a professor. No one who met him for the first time today would think of calling him Professor.

‘Go for it,’ he told himself.

He put on a clean shirt but left it hanging defiantly outside his trousers. The piratical look would give the perfect flight attendant a shock, he thought. Excellent!

He was grinning as he came out of the small washroom. In fact, he was so distracted that he walked straight into another body.

‘Oh, excuse me,’ said the body, flustered, and dropped a washbag.

Steven dived for it chivalrously. The body was a tall woman with an untidy bush of hair and a tired face. As he handed the bag back to her he thought that she looked as if she had not closed her eyes since they left New York.

‘My fault,’ he said compassionately. ‘Sorry about that.’

She shook her head, hugging the bag to her breast. ‘Don’t be. I shouldn’t be up here anyway.’

The aroma of coffee had been joined by the smell of hot rolls. Passengers in the first-class cabin were still resting peacefully, but presumably other people were being shaken awake. A continental breakfast was clearly imminent somewhere. He made the obvious deduction.

‘Do I take it you’re an invader from economy class?’

‘Yes.’ She eyed him warily.

Steven was impatient. Did she think he would call an attendant and complain? So much for his piratical appearance! It obviously took more than a missed shave to make him look like a free spirit.

He said ruefully, ‘Good luck.’

He realised that he was blocking her path. He began to move aside with a word of apology—and the plane banked.

Two things happened simultaneously. The jet-enhanced sunrise lit the cabin with gold. And the woman staggered. Her eyes flared, as if she had suddenly been recalled to herself, but it was too late. There was nothing to hold on to. She tipped forward, dangerously off balance, and began to tumble.

Steven caught her. Well, of course he caught her. He was a gentleman. And anyway, that was what he was good at, thought Steven wryly. It was what he was designed for, with his rugby player’s build and his judo-honed muscles. Strong and stable. He was not charming, and he had never been handsome, but by golly he had always been good at stopping women falling on the floor.

So good that he almost managed to repress the leap of the senses that hit him fair and square.

For in the blazing dawn she was suddenly amazing—no longer a tired woman with tangled hair. She was a golden-skinned goddess with a wild red mane. More than red—flame and scarlet and crimson and bronze, flickering like living fire. As it brushed his mouth it smelled of leaves. In his bracing arms her body felt unbelievably soft…Steven swallowed.

Ouch! One rejection of the morning razor, one lurch of a plane, and he was into seriously politically incorrect territory.

Hold on, there, Steven Konig. You’re not Captain Blood and never have been.

He restored her to her feet fast.

‘I’m so sorry,’ said the goddess, flustered.

She did not seem to have noticed his reaction.

‘My pleasure,’ said Steven. He could have kicked himself the moment he said it. It sounded as if he had been hanging around just waiting to get his hands on her.

But the goddess did not seem to be on political correctness patrol just now, thank God. In fact the goddess was looking adorably remorseful.

‘Did I hurt you?’ The soft voice had an accent he did not recognise, and Steven was good at accents.

‘Of course not.’

Steven was charmed that she should ask, though. It was a long time since anyone had asked if they’d hurt him. The brilliant and influential Steven Konig was not supposed to have any vulnerabilities at all.

But his golden Venus was still worried about him.

‘That was so clumsy of me. I just wasn’t concentrating.’

‘I was standing in your way. Don’t worry about it.’

She gave him a shy, grateful smile. His flame-haired Venus was shy?

‘No, it was my fault. I had stuff on my mind. Sorry.’

‘I know the feeling.’ And for some reason he found himself telling her a truth, suddenly. ‘I end up taking stock of my life when I’m on a plane. Coming down can be a shock. Brace yourself for landing; here comes your life again!’

She laughed. She had exactly the right sort of laugh for a goddess. It was a warm gurgle, as warm as that amazing hair and full of delighted surprise. Steven felt as if he had been given a prize.

‘You are so right,’ she said with feeling.

He beamed at her. Flustered and rumpled and honest, she was the sweetest thing he had seen in a long time. He had a sudden urge not to let her go.

‘Is this your first time in England?’

And at once thought, How stupid; that accent could even be English.

She was shaking her head but she did not crunch him. ‘No. But I haven’t been here for years. I’m going to have to do the Tower of London and St Paul’s Cathedral all over again. If I have time.’

‘Time? It’s really a business trip, then?’

‘You could say that.’ She had a dimple at the corner of her mouth when she wanted to smile and was trying to repress it. Steven stared, fascinated. All goddesses should have dimples, he decided. Made them more human. More approachable.

He said on impulse, ‘If you’re doing the sights, you should certainly take a trip out to Oxford. The old colleges are pure fairytale.’

She let herself laugh aloud then, and the dimple disappeared. He would have objected but her dancing eyes made up for it.

‘That’s a great marketing job you’re doing. Has the town got you on a retainer?’

‘City,’ he said automatically. ‘No, but I live there.’ He smiled into those warm brown eyes. It was a heady feeling. ‘The place is a jewel. You ought to see it if you haven’t.’

She shook her head. ‘No. Well, not that I remember.’

He was intrigued. ‘Amnesia?’

‘I wish.’ This time the dimple flickered only for a moment. She gave a sharp sigh. ‘I was born in England, but my mother died when I was five and my father took me to Peru.’

He was fascinated. ‘And you’ve never been back?’

‘Well, not seriously. Once with the school for a few days, a long time ago. But it wasn’t easy—’ She stopped. Then said explosively, ‘Hell, why cover it up any more? There was a family feud. The Other Side lived in England.’

He pursed his lips in a soundless whistle. ‘Big stuff. I didn’t know people still had family feuds. Not having a family myself, I suppose I wouldn’t.’

The dimple reappeared. ‘Congratulations.’

He laughed aloud, enchanted. ‘So, this trip is of the nature of a peace summit?’

She jumped. ‘Not really. Though I’ve thought about it,’ she admitted cautiously. ‘But I’d have to do a lot of tracking down. I don’t know where to start.’

The goddess had a chin that Napoleon would have been wary of—and a voluptuous, vulnerable mouth.

Distracted, Steven said, ‘I bet you’ll find a way. I bet you could do just about anything you set your mind to.’

She gave him a smile like sudden sunshine. ‘That’s what I’ve always been told.’

‘Well, then—?’

She laughed. ‘They may not want to see me,’ she pointed out. ‘People have been brooding on this feud for a long time.’

He found his mouth widening into his wickedest grin. ‘Montagues and Capulets,’ he said. ‘They’ll be fascinated. Trust me.’

She was doubtful. ‘Do you think so?’

‘Positive. What’s more, it makes you much more than a tourist. So you must definitely come to Oxford.’ He felt in his pocket for a business card. ‘It’s your heritage. You’re coming home.’

‘Home!’ She flinched as if he had kicked her. The wonderful smile died as abruptly as if someone had flung a switch. ‘I don’t think so.’

A man, thought Steven at once. It had to be. In his experience, a woman only flinched like that at the word ‘home’ if there was a man involved. Was she fleeing an unhappy relationship? Or was there a man she wanted who wouldn’t make a home with her? For some reason Steven hated the idea of that.

He stuffed his business card back and took his hand out of his pocket.

Or maybe the man wanted her to move in with him. Anyway, her reaction to the word ‘home’ had nothing to do with a load of long-lost relatives. Oh, yes, it was a man all right.

He stopped his thoughts right there. Either way, it made no difference to him, did it? He was not the sort of man to pick up women in mid-air. And his shy golden goddess did not look like the sort of woman to let herself be picked up anywhere.

Nice idea, Steven. Not practical. You’re not Captain Blood and you haven’t got a pirate ship to carry her off to. Get yourself a shave and a tie and get back to normal!

He stepped back and gave her one of his public smiles—courteous, regretful, remote as the moon. He was invulnerable Steven Konig again.

‘Well, have a good one, whatever you decide to do. Safe landing!’

‘Th-thank you.’

Or he thought that was what she said. He did not wait to hear her reply.

See that fantasy; let it go. He said it to himself savagely as he made his way back to his seat. He was thirty-nine years old and far too many people depended on him to keep his head. Fantasising about goddesses was for teenagers.

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