LITMIR.BIZ

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have no desire to be treated as royalty and I would be a major disappointment as a house guest…’

      ‘As a favour to me…?’ his editor cajoled.

      ‘She can have an autographed copy of my next book.’

      ‘She already has one, your signature is really very easy to fake.’

      Malcolm decided that Luc’s reluctant laugh was a sign the younger man was mellowing and pressed his advantage.

      ‘Laura’s been on at me for ages about you. Now, with Megan being thirty next month, and the lawyer chap breaking his leg last minute…’ A huge sigh reverberated down the line.

      ‘Who or what is Megan?’

      ‘My niece, lovely girl…not married.’

      An expression of amused comprehension crossed Luc’s lean face. ‘Am I invited because your sister is looking for a mug to partner her daughter?’

      ‘Megan is a lovely girl,’ Malcolm protested. ‘Great personality. Takes after her father in the looks department, of course, but you can’t have everything.’

      Luc listened in growing amusement to the flow of confidences…from the moment he had walked into Malcolm’s office he had wanted to dislike the other man. He represented everything Luc despised, from his accent to his privileged background. Yet Malcolm also possessed charm, he was basically a very likeable guy and, as Luc had learnt, despite his vague attitude, no pushover when it came to business.

      ‘Do all the members of your family live in a previous century?’

      Malcolm Hall’s voice took on an ill-used quality as he responded to this incredulous query. ‘Well, really, Lucas, I don’t think it’s much to ask considering what I’ve done for you. You really can be selfish, do you know that?’ he complained.

      Luc didn’t resent the observation; he considered it was essentially true. He didn’t enjoy money for its own sake, but he did enjoy the freedom it gave him. He considered himself a lucky man that doing what he enjoyed enabled him to live life on his terms.

      It hadn’t felt like it at the time, but with hindsight Luc recognised that losing his business the way he had had been one of the best things that had happened to him. If it hadn’t been for his embezzling ex-partner he would never have shut himself in a room and worked for three weeks solid on the novel he had always meant to finish.

      ‘I suppose I could tell Laura you have flu…’

      ‘You can tell Laura anything you like, so long as it isn’t I’d love to come to her party.’ He liked Malcolm but that didn’t mean he had the slightest intention of enduring a weekend being nice to people he had nothing whatever in common with.

      It hadn’t required enormous powers of deduction to discover where he lived, just a sneaky look in her uncle’s address book.

      Lucas Patrick, the best-selling author of a string of commercial and critically acclaimed novels, resided in the penthouse apartment of a warehouse conversion beside the river, the one that had won a whole bunch of awards the previous year. It was an address that didn’t appear on the flyleaf of his numerous novels, but then neither did a suitably moody-looking black-and-white snapshot of the author.

      Was the man genuinely allergic to publicity or was it a clever marketing ploy? Megan was not sure, but what was indisputable was that his point-blank refusal to promote his books had boosted his sales and turned him into an enigmatic hero-type figure not unlike the one that featured in his books. And Uncle Malcolm had been no help; the only thing he had let slip was that his most famous client was single and young.

      If, when he went public, the writer turned out in the end to have middle-aged spread or a receding hairline there were going to be a lot of disappointed fans out there, her own mother included! she thought with a wry smile. Megan hoped he was presentable—it would make her idea a lot easier to pull off.

      She paused, her finger hovering above the appropriate button, seized by last minute doubts about what she was doing. Last night this had seemed a truly inspired idea. In the cold light of day she didn’t feel quite so confident that she was doing the right thing…she was even starting to wonder if it might not be a little crazy…?

      But then desperate circumstances, she reminded herself, called for desperate measures!

      What was the worst that could happen…?

      Nothing as bad as what was going to happen if she didn’t take some drastic action. Last Easter’s efforts were still indelibly etched in Megan’s mind. It had been totally excruciating and obvious to everybody but the hostess herself that the investment banker she had invited for the weekend as a potential husband for her spinster daughter was gay.

      Megan loved her mother dearly, in fact she would have been the perfect parent if it weren’t for her unswerving devotion to marrying off Megan!

      Laura Semple had a simple philosophy—no woman could be happy without a man.

      The conversation they had had over breakfast that very morning was more or less the same one they’d been having ever since Megan had decided not to marry the ever-so-suitable Brian four years earlier. Brian, who had turned out to be, not caring and protective in a charming, old-fashioned way, but a fully-fledged, possessive control freak who wanted her to account for every minute of her day and who got jealous when she talked to another man—any man.

      Megan considered herself to have had a lucky escape, a view not shared by her mother.

      ‘Of course I’m proud of what you’ve achieved, darling, but you can’t tell me you’re happy…not really happy.’

      ‘You don’t have a man, Mum.’

      ‘That,’ Laura rebutted firmly, ‘is not the same thing at all. I’ll never love a man the way I did your father.’

      Megan saw the tears in her mother’s eyes before she turned her head.

      ‘There are lots of different loves.’ Her own throat thickened with emotion as she gently squeezed her mother’s hand. ‘And actually I am happy.’

      Her claim met with polite but open scepticism.

      ‘I promise you, Mum, I’m perfectly content.’

      ‘“Content” is a very middle-aged word, Megan,’ her mother disapproved with a sigh.

      ‘Maybe I’m one of those people that are born middle-aged…?’

      ‘Oh, I know you put a brave face on it,’ Laura continued, ignoring this flippant interjection. ‘But, no matter what they say, no woman is totally fulfilled without a man.’

      Megan bit her tongue and carried on smiling, past experience had taught her it was a waste of breath to argue this particular point.

      ‘In your case a strong man I think,’ Laura mused. ‘One who isn’t intimidated by your brains. Now Lucas Patrick doesn’t sound to me like a man who is likely to lack confidence. The way he coped when his plane went down in the Andes…’

      ‘That was his hero. He writes fiction, Mother,’ Megan reminded her parent. ‘He doesn’t spend his life scaling impregnable peaks, busting international drug cartels or fighting off beautiful women who want to ravish him.’

      ‘I am perfectly able to distinguish fact from fiction,’ her mother retorted with dignity. ‘But your uncle says he’s scrupulous about his research and he never asks his hero to do anything he hasn’t himself.’

      ‘I seriously doubt if that includes crash-landing a plane and walking away without a scratch,’ Megan muttered under her breath, then added in a louder voice, ‘And the fact is you wouldn’t know him from the man who delivers the milk. He’ll probably turn out to be a regular anorak.’ Her brow furrowed. ‘And why on earth is he coming to one of your country weekends…?’

      ‘I

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