LITMIR.BIZ

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      To Birgit,

      with gratitude, respect and affection

      Contents

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      1

      To: John Brightman

       From: Quinn Garrett Date: November 19 Subject: Long time no see

      Hello, John. I googled your name and found your work e-mail. You’re no longer in Wisconsin—big disappointment. I’m heading to Milwaukee in December to see about starting a manufacturing plant for the HC-3 and was hoping to see you. I have a lot of good memories of the year I spent with your family. Hope you are well.

      Quinn

      To: Quinn Garrett

       From: John Brightman Date: November 20 Subject: Re: Long time no see

      Quinn! How the hell are you? God, it’s been forever! Sixteen years? Of course I’ve followed your rise to the top with Holocorp, so I know more about you than you do about me. I guess you’re probably sick of comparisons to the big Gates guy, but if the shoe fits… Congratulations, you’ve done the world of technology a lot of good. My students already act as if holographic computer screens have been in existence since the dawn of time.

      I’m teaching at Rollins, still can’t get used to the Florida climate. My sister is the only one left in Milwaukee; I’m sorry to say my parents passed on, Dad about six years ago, Mom two.

      Look Annabel up when you’re there. She started a personal chef business a year ago and is running herself ragged. Take her out and make her have some fun, for God’s sake. You might be the great success story of the twenty-first century, but I can’t believe you’ve forgotten how to have fun. She apparently has.

      Will you be around at Christmastime or back in California? Or are you visiting your folks in Maine? I wasn’t planning to come home; Annabel doesn’t “do” Christmas anymore, but if you’re there, maybe I will, and bring Alison and the kids. I’ve got a cousin who owns a house next to the lake and there’s plenty of room.

      Got to run to a class, stay in touch.

      Best,

      John

      ANNABEL TURNED her minivan into her narrow driveway on Sixty-third Street in Wauwatosa, only three blocks west of the Milwaukee city line, pressed her garage-door opener and sailed into the two-car garage. Yes, indeed, she was fried like an egg. All day, cooking a week’s worth of meals at the Bergers, the fussiest people on earth. Ted, one of the students she hired to help out, was cramming this week for his exams at Milwaukee Area Technical College, so Annabel had taken over at a time she’d rather be working on getting more new business. Things might be going well, but they could be going better. Her personal mantra.

      This time of year was always nuts. Starting mid-November, people wanted to party instead of work. Which meant shifting from high gear to overdrive. Plus, in addition to her regular roster of clients and the extra holiday dinner parties, this year she was adding a new option—Dinner and a Show. Pairing an early dinner party at the client’s home with tickets to The Nutcracker or A Christmas Carol, or a Milwaukee Symphony Holiday Pops Concert. Included in the deal was a limo chauffeuring the lucky paying guests to and from. Dessert and drinks after the show could be had in addition to or instead of dinner.

      Brilliant, if she did say so herself, which she did and no apologies. With any luck she could get a real office someday and lose the stigma of the cute little woman starting a cute little business out of her home. Pat, pat, pat and a cheek pinch—yick.

      If Annabel had anything to say about it, Chefs Tonight would be anything but cute. Chefs Tonight would someday be an empire. Her dishes would be delivered around the world, syndicated newspaper columns would feature her menus, her cookbooks, her recipes. She’d be the female version of Adolph Fox, the success comet whose tail she was following, the man who’d put his signature gourmet food in every supermarket freezer in the country.

      She stepped out of her minivan—oh, for a sexy convertible, but sexy convertibles were bad news when it came to lugging clients’ groceries around town—and grabbed her fancy leather briefcase, a gift to herself last summer when she signed on her tenth client.

      Outside in the misty, damp December air, she jabbed the button to lower the garage door. It was unusually warm for this time of year, upper forties and densely foggy, ho, ho, ho, thanks a lot. The houses across the street appeared and disappeared as if they, not the fog, were undulating and immaterial.

      The soles of her clogs clunked across cement to her back door, her footsteps louder than usual in the thick, silent air. She grabbed her keys and let herself into her house, kicked off the shoes and padded to the back bedroom her assistant used as an office.

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