LITMIR.BIZ

      PROLOGUE

      Eight years ago...

      ‘So, in conclusion, I think the marketing strategy your people presented to you is hackneyed, stupid and asinine, and pays absolutely no attention to your demographics, to the market research or to where your competitors are placing themselves. It’s under-researched and knocked together, and if you follow it I guarantee that you will lose most of your market share in five years’ time—if not your business.’

      Luke Savage looked across his messy desk at the earnest young woman perched on the edge of her chair, her face animated with youthful zeal and a healthy dose of arrogance. What was her name again? He glanced down at the file in front of him. Jess Sherwood. She was twenty-two, he read, and was currently doing her MBA in Marketing. The file did state that she was over-blessed with brains—her school and university achievements were, to put it mildly, impressive—but it failed to mention that she was solidly gorgeous as well.

      A true brown-eyed blonde.

      She was quite a parcel and, boy, did she know it.

      Luke kept his face impassive as she draped one long, slim leg over the other and lightly linked her hands around a bare knee, an index finger tapping away. She wore a short, flouncy dress, falling off one shoulder and showing a thin purple bra strap, and belted at slim hips by a broad leather belt. Falling to mid-thigh, it was too short, too casual, and too sexy an outfit for work—but she wore it with careless confidence.

      Luke, who was seldom surprised at much, was taken aback by her self-importance and her balls-to-the-wall chutzpah. She’d been placed as an intern for the summer holidays, to gain work experience within St Sylve’s marketing department—his marketing department, since he’d recently inherited the generations-old family vineyard. She’d ambushed him as he’d been about to leave, barged into his office and said that she felt ‘morally obligated’—he curled his lip at the phrase—to tell him that his decisions sucked and his marketing plan was dreadful. And now she had the temerity to predict the failure of his business.

      Her mobile rang and Luke hissed his annoyance as she dived for her bag and pulled out the phone, squinting at the display. She flashed him a wide smile that was charming but devoid of apology. ‘Sorry—I have to take this.’

      Whatever—I’m just your boss. Why don’t I just wait while you finish arranging your social life?

      He felt twenty years older than her, rather than six, and he probably was in experience. University was a dim and distant memory, clouded by the fourteen- to sixteen-hour days he’d been working for the past seven years.

      Lately he’d felt perpetually exhausted, but if he’d had the energy he’d have got up and yanked her mobile from her ear and torn her a new one. Which he intended to do when she finished cooing into her mobile.

      Her words rattled around his brain... You will lose most of your market...

      Hell, he was losing St Sylve. It was failing... Not his fault or his failure, because failure wasn’t what he did—well, it wasn’t what he’d been allowed to do. Sport? He’d excelled at most. Academics? Scholarships and huge job offers had translated into his being able to set up his own company three years ago...one of the youngest venture capitalists in the country. Marriage? Okay, he’d dropped the ball on

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