LITMIR.BIZ

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER ONE

      THE hotel events organiser burst into the drab staff cloakroom with all the drama of a star going nova, her frown easing dramatically when she saw the woman there.

      ‘Alexa! Thank heavens!’ she cried. ‘I was afraid you weren’t going to be able to make it. This wretched flu has struck down just about every waiter with security clearance.’

      ‘Hi, Carole,’ Alexa Mytton said cheerfully, smoothing sheer black pantyhose up her long legs. ‘I didn’t know I had security clearance.’

      Carole looked a little self-conscious. ‘With all the high-powered bankers in Auckland for this conference—not to mention the Prince of Dacia’s security man, who is driving us crazy—head office insisted we run checks on everyone,’ she said. ‘You’re as clean as a whistle, of course.’

      Something in her voice alerted Alexa. ‘Did you mention that I’m a photographer?’

      A grimace distorted Carole’s perfectly made-up face. ‘No, because paranoia reigns! I could see I didn’t have a hope of convincing the Prince’s man that you’re an up-and-coming studio photographer, not one of the dreaded paparazzi!’

      Five years previously, when Carole had owned the top restaurant in the city, she’d hired Alexa as part-time help. A first-year university student, with no family and no money, Alexa had been grateful for the job, and still enjoyed helping her former boss in emergencies.

      ‘Security men are paid to be paranoid,’ she said cheerfully, straightening up to pull a long black skirt over her head. She patted the material over her slender hips and shrugged into a classical white shirt.

      ‘He’s not too bad, I suppose.’ Carole surveyed Alexa with a professional eye. ‘I thought you might have stopped taking casual work.’

      ‘No, I’m still saving for that trip to Italy to research my grandfather.’

      ‘Tell me when you’re planning to go so I can take you off the roster.’

      Alexa’s long fingers flew as she buttoned up the shirt. Laughing, she said, ‘It’ll be another couple of months. But even if I had the tickets I’d have jumped at the chance to see the Grand Duke Luka of Dacia close up.’ Opening her wide ice-grey eyes to their fullest extent, she batted long black lashes and simpered. ‘He’s not a regular visitor to unfashionable countries like New Zealand, so this might be my only chance to admire the gorgeous face that’s sold so many millions of magazines and newspapers.’

      Carole leaned forward, her voice dropping into a confidential purr. ‘Mock all you like, but he’s a seriously, seriously beautiful man.’

      ‘Let’s hope I can control my awe and fascination enough not to tip the crayfish patties over him.’

      Oh, to be twenty-three again, Carole thought, before remembering what it had been like to ride that rollercoaster of emotions. But it would be great to look twenty-three again! Not that she’d ever come up to Alexa’s standard. With her warm Mediterranean colouring of cream skin and copper hair the younger woman glowed like an exotic flower in the cramped, utilitarian confines of the room.

      ‘Not patties,’ Carole corrected briskly. ‘They went out with the fifties. Did the Italian university have any information about your grandfather?’

      Alexa shrugged. ‘A big fat nothing so far.’ Skillfully and swiftly she began to plait her thick hair into a neat roll at the back of her head. ‘Either they won’t give out information, or my Italian is so bad they didn’t understand my letter!’

      ‘That’s a shame,’ Carole said with brisk sympathy, glancing down at the clipboard she carried. She looked up to add, ‘By the way, dishy though he certainly is, Luka of Dacia is no longer Grand Duke. Since his father died a year or so ago he’s the hereditary Prince of Dacia, sole scion of the ancient and royal house of Bagaton.’

      Alexa searched in her bag for a tube of lipgloss. ‘What do I call him if he says something to me?’

      ‘Your Royal Highness the first time, and then sir.’ Carole sighed. ‘It doesn’t seem fair, does it? For a man to have it all—power, money and looks. Oh, and intelligence.’

      Alexa laughed. ‘Intelligence? Come off it, the man’s a playboy.’

      ‘He didn’t get to be head of one of the top banks in the world without brains.’

      ‘The fact that his royal daddy set the bank up might just have had something to do with that,’ Alexa suggested drily, producing the tube from its hiding place in the bottom of her bag. ‘If the gossip columns and royal-watchers of the world are right, the Prince simply hasn’t got enough time to be a high-flying banker. He’s too busy wining, dining and bedding fabulous women all over the globe.’

      Carole grinned. ‘Just wait till you see him. He’s—well, he’s overwhelming.’

      ‘I haven’t been able to open a magazine or newspaper for the past ten years without being overwhelmed by photographs of him. I agree—he’s sinfully good-looking if you like them tall, dark and frivolous.’

      ‘Frivolous he is not, and photographs don’t do him justice. Whatever the definition of charisma, he’s over-flowing with it. And trouble.’ Abruptly sobering, Carole went on, ‘Overseas photographers have already approached several of the staff with outrageous offers.’

      ‘I knew I should have brought

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