LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER ONE

      ARABELLA stared at the huge double gates that led up to the house beyond. Forty-eight hours ago she had thought this visit impossible. But as she continued to look down the long driveway she knew that not only was it possible, it was imperative, if she was to salvage any relationship with Merlin at all. Despite what her father and Stephen had done to damage that relationship, she knew she had to do what she could. She still cringed when she recalled the conversation she had overheard between the two men two days ago.

      ‘What do you mean, the man wouldn’t even listen to you? You must have—’

      ‘I’ve told you, Father,’ Stephen had cut in exasperatedly. ‘I didn’t even get in the front gates of the damned house. There were two huge dogs—’

      ‘Stephen! Father!’ Arabella had admonished breathlessly as she’d reached the open doorway, entering the room before closing the door behind her. T could hear the two of you arguing all the way down the corridor in my own office.’ She looked at both of them with questioning blue eyes. ‘What on earth is going on?’

      Her father’s face was flushed, and she guessed that wasn’t only due to his undoubted anger; it was three-thirty in the afternoon, and he enjoyed nothing more than a leisurely lunch accompanied by a liberal imbibing of his favourite wine. In fact, it was surprising he was back in his office at all just yet...

      As for her brother, Stephen, he certainly wasn’t supposed to be here, her father having sent him away on business yesterday, expecting him to be away for several days. Although, from the little she had heard of their heated conversation, it was Stephen’s lack of success on his trip that had triggered the argument between father and son.

      Her father sat down behind his imposing oak desk, sitting forward to rest his elbows on the green leather top. He was still a handsome man in his mid-fifties, with only a distinguished sprinkling of grey at his temples amongst his dark hair.

      His eyes were icy grey now as he looked across the room at his only son. ‘Your brother has the answer to that,’ he dismissed contemptuously.

      Stephen’s youthful face flushed resentfully. ‘I told you it wasn’t my fault, that—’

      ‘“Give him more responsibility,” you said,’ her father accused impatiently. ‘“Let him show you what he can do,”’ he added scathingly. ‘And what happens the first time I try to put that advice into practice?’ He slapped his hand down flat on the leather desktop with resounding finality. ‘He’s sent away with a flea in his ear, that’s what happens, just as if he were some door-to-door salesman!’ He gave a disgusted shake of his head. ‘It’s not good enough, Arabella. You and I both know—’

      ‘Let’s all just calm down and discuss the problem sensibly,’ she cut in soothingly, her suggestion of calming down aimed at the two men; she was her usual unruffled self. She wasn’t absolutely sure that the problem under discussion was necessarily her brother’s fault; their father had a way of presenting him with impossibilities.

      ‘Stephen?’ She prompted him to sit down in the chair facing their father’s desk.

      An action he chose to rebel against, deciding to sit in the leather armchair at the back of the room, a mutinous expression on his boyishly handsome face; his hair was as dark as their father’s, and his eyes were normally a warm blue, like Arabella’s own. Normally because, at this moment, Stephen’s were stormy with rebellion.

      Arabella sighed as she contemplated the two stubborn, arrogant faces, sitting down in the chair opposite her father herself. She loved these two men enormously, but she had to concede that, despite the thirtyyear difference in their ages, they very often behaved as childishly as each other. She was often called in as arbitrator between the two, her father impatient with Stephen’s impetuous youthfulness, Stephen considering their father old and set in his ways, with a code for business that smacked of the Victorian.

      Stephen might have been right in that last accusation, but as owner of a prestigious publishing company that had been in the family for almost a hundred years her father’s old-fashioned values made Atherton Publishing what it was. Up here, on the third floor of the building that housed the company, far removed from the rush and bustle of the editorial department of the two lower floors, time seemed to stand still; the furnishings in this office, as in all the executive offices on this floor, looked as if they had come straight out of Victoria’s reign.

      Which was just the way her father liked it. Arabella too, if she were honest. It was only twenty-five-year-old Stephen who found it all claustrophobic, having left university three years before with a degree

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