LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER ONE

      IF THE bit of black satin and lace spilling from the gold foil box wasn’t the sexiest nightgown Hannah had ever seen, it was certainly a close contender. It looked as if it might make the man who saw you in it go up in flames the moment you opened its matching peignoir.

      ‘Well?’ Sally shifted impatiently from one foot to the other. ‘What do you think?’

      Hannah poked a finger at the sheer bodice. ‘It’s—uh—it’s very nice.’

      ‘Nice?’ Sally made a face. ‘It’s got to be better than “nice”, Hannah. “Nice” is what your mother buys you for sleep-away camp, it’s not what the girls you work with give you as a wedding gift!’

      Hannah nodded. ‘Right. That’s what I meant, that it’s the perfect present for a bridal shower.’ She pushed her oversized glasses up on the bridge of her nose. ‘Really.’

      ‘Yeah?’ Sally drew the gown towards her, regarded it critically, then let it slip back so it lay draped across the gold box. ‘Gosh, I hope so. I’ve never been the one to choose the gift before. I just hope Betty likes it.’

      ‘I’m sure she will.’

      ‘OK, then, I’m gonna just leave this here until it’s time to give it to her—or you can bring it with you when you come to the lunch room, OK?’

      ‘Me? Oh, I can’t! I’ve too much to... do,’ Hannah finished lamely as the door swung shut. Sally was gone, leaving only a drift of perfume behind.

      Hannah stared at the gown, made a face, and sank down in her chair. Today seemed to be her day for dealing with the two extremes of wedded bliss, she thought. Her forehead creased as she leaned towards her computer and began scrolling through the ugly details of Gibbs vs. Gibbs. What had once been a happy marriage had been reduced to a case file of accusations and rebuttals.

      Well, she thought as she began typing, at least there hadn’t been any children involved. Her fingers slowed on the keys. That was what people had said about her too, eight long years ago when the pain of her own divorce had been fresh and questions about the future had seemed insurmountable.

      ‘It’s a good thing you didn’t have kids,’ they’d said, and Hannah had agreed. It had been scary enough being responsible for herself, let alone for a baby.

      But she’d turned out to be perfectly capable of making a life, a good one, for herself. All it lacked, if it lacked anything, was someone to share it with. Not a man. Never that. But if she’d had a child, a daughter or a son, a smiling face to come home to at the end of the day...

      Hannah gave herself a little shake. ‘Oh, come on,’ she said briskly. Her fingers danced over the computer keyboard. There was no point in wasting time on what might have been. It was now that mattered—and that meant making sense of the Byzantine complications of the case her boss had dumped on to her shoulders just before he’d marched out of the door.

      ‘Do something with this mess,’ he’d demanded, dropping several thick files on her desk on his way out.

      ‘Do what?’ Hannah had asked, bewildered. She had been Grant MacLean’s assistant for five months now, but she’d only helped him with his speciality, international law.

      ‘Make some sense out of it, Miss Lewis,’ he’d said, his grey eyes cool. ‘You do have some sort of paralegal training, don’t you?’

      And you’re the one who gets paid a fortune to practise law, Hannah had wanted to say. But she hadn’t. She liked her job too much to toss it all away. Besides, she’d learned to bite her tongue and let her boss’s sharper comments slip by.

      Mean MacLean, Sally had dubbed him, and, if it was a cruel nickname, it was close to accurate.

      ‘What a waste,’ she’d groaned, ‘all that thick black hair, white teeth, rippling muscles, and gorgeous eyes—and a heart so tiny you’d have to perform micro-surgery to find it!’

      Hannah sighed as she highlighted a section of text. That wasn’t precisely true. Grant MacLean had a heartrather a busy heart, if his monthly flower and chocolate bill meant anything. It was just that no one who worked for him ever saw it.

      It was ‘do this,’ and ‘do that,’ with a ‘please’ added sometimes, a please that never seemed to soften the glacial arrogance in the tone.

      Still, there were things that made the job more than palatable. The pay was excellent and, in all truth, MacLean drove himself even harder than he drove her. He was, evidently, a believer in working as hard as he played. And working for him was quite a plum, especially for someone like Hannah who’d been a secretary with a brand new paralegal certificate in her hand only five months ago. He was the firm’s shining star, a lawyer with a rapidly developing national and international reputation. Hannah had a sneaking suspicion she hadn’t been his first choice for the job, but his

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