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

      EPILOGUE

      CHAPTER ONE

      ‘SO WHAT you’re saying is that my ex-husband has damaged my business so badly that it and I are both virtually bankrupt?’

      Lucy stared at her solicitor. A deepening sense of sickening shock and fear was gripping her, a feeling that the situation she was involved in was so frightening and unbearable that it could not possibly be real.

      But it was real. She was here, seated in front of Mr McVicar, while he told her that her ex-husband had so badly damaged the reputation and financial status of the event organisation company she had set up with such enthusiasm and delight prior to their marriage that it was no longer viable.

      Nick had cheated her sexually and financially all through their brief marriage…but then, hadn’t she done some cheating herself? A guilty conscience wasn’t going to help her now, Lucy warned herself, as she struggled with the massive weight of the problems she now faced.

      ‘I’ve got some commissions for events for the rest of this year,’ she told the solicitor, crossing her fingers behind her back and hoping that he wouldn’t ask her how many, since in reality there were so few. ‘Perhaps, in view of that, the bank…?’

      Her solicitor shook his head. He liked his pretty young client, and felt very sorry for her, but in his opinion her nature was too gentle for the unforgiving world of business.

      ‘I’m sorry, my dear,’ he told her. ‘As you’ve already said yourself, several potential clients have cancelled their events and asked for their deposits back already, and I’m afraid…Well, let’s just say we live in a harsh world, where confidence is something no one can put a price on.’

      ‘And because of what Nick has done no one will have any confidence in Prêt a Party any more—is that what you mean?’ Lucy asked him bitterly. ‘Even though Nick is no longer a part of the business, or my life, and I was the one who started it up in the first place?’

      The solicitor’s sympathetic look was all the answer she needed.

      ‘I dare say I shouldn’t blame clients for backing out. After all, I suppose in their eyes if I was stupid enough to marry Nick then I can’t have much credibility,’ Lucy said with bitter humour. That was certainly what Marcus believed. She knew that well enough.

      Marcus. If there was one person she would like to somehow magically remove from her life and her memories for ever, that person wasn’t Nick, but Marcus.

      ‘Is there nothing I can do to save the business?’ She appealed to her solicitor.

      ‘If you could find a new partner—someone of probity and known financial stature, whom people respect and trust, and who is willing to inject enough capital to settle all Prêt a Party’s outstanding obligations…’

      ‘But I intend to pay those off myself. I still have money in my trust fund,’ Lucy interrupted fiercely.

      ‘Yes, of course. I realise that. But I’m afraid that clearing Prêt a Party’s debts, whilst a very honourable thing to do, will not revive client confidence in you, Lucy. Regrettably, the actions of your ex-husband have damaged the reputation of the business virtually beyond repair, and the fact that both your partners have left Prêt a Party—’

      ‘But that’s because they both got married and have other responsibilities now, that’s all. Not because of anything else! Carly’s pregnant and has her son to look after, as well as working alongside Ricardo with the orphanages he has set up, and Julia has a new baby to look after—plus she’s involved in the Foundation—’

      ‘Of course.’ Her solicitor soothed her sympathetically. ‘I know all this, Lucy, but unfortunately the eyes of the outer and greater world—the world from which you hope to attract new business—do not see it. I really am sorry, my dear.’ He paused. ‘Have you thought of approaching Marcus? He—’

      ‘No! Never! And I absolutely and totally forbid you to say anything about any of this to him, Mr McVicar.’ Lucy spoke fiercely, standing up so abruptly that she almost knocked over her chair. Panic and misery gripped her by the throat as powerfully as though it were Marcus himself closing his fingers around it. How he would love this. How he would love telling her that he had warned her all along that this would happen. How he would look down that aristocratic nose of his with those ice-cold eyes while he ticked off a list of all that she had done wrong, all the ways in which she had failed.

      Sometimes, in the eyes of her family and Marcus, Lucy felt as though she had spent the whole of her life failing. For a start she had been a girl and not a boy, a daughter and not a son—a daughter to be married off and not a son to be an heir. And, even though her parents had gone on to have a son, Lucy had somehow always felt she had let them down by being born first, and the wrong sex. Not that her parents had ever said that she was a disappointment to them, but Lucy had been born with a sensitive kind of nature and did not need to be told what people felt. She had sensed her parents’ disappointment—just as in later years she had recognised Marcus’s impatient irritation with her.

      Not that anyone ever needed to guess what Marcus thought or felt. She had never known anyone more capable of or uncompromising about saying exactly what he thought and felt. And he had made it plain from the first moment he had confronted Lucy across the large desk in his London office that he did not approve of the fact that her late great-uncle had left her such a large sum of money.

      ‘I suppose that’s why you agreed to be my trustee, is it?’ Lucy had accused him. ‘Because you don’t approve of me having the money and you want to make life as difficult for me as possible!’

      ‘That

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