LITMIR.BIZ

      CONTENTS

       Cover

       Back Cover Text

       Title Page

       CHAPTER ONE

       CHAPTER TWO

       CHAPTER THREE

       CHAPTER FOUR

       CHAPTER FIVE

       CHAPTER SIX

       CHAPTER SEVEN

       CHAPTER EIGHT

       CHAPTER NINE

       CHAPTER TEN

       CHAPTER ELEVEN

       CHAPTER TWELVE

       Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

      TALIA held the grey flannel suit against her as she stared into the mirror. Not bad, she thought, tilting her head critically. The suit, along with the matching kidskin pumps and the cream silk blouse still in her suitcase, was the perfect dress-for-success ensemble. She’d look calm and professional, an example of middle management at its respectable best.

      Nobody would suspect that in reality she was a quaking bundle of nerves, ready to come unglued at the first touch.

      She sighed as she hung the suit in the wardrobe. Her boss knew that she was a wreck, of course, but he wasn’t here. John was back in the San Francisco office, which was where he’d called from minutes ago.

      ‘Break a leg, kid,’ he’d said cheerfully, and Talia had winced. Somehow, she’d have preferred a simple ‘good luck’ to the traditional actor’s phrase. But John Diamond had pursued a fruitless stage career before he’d started Diamond Food Services, and he never tired of reminding anyone who’d listen that his heart was still in the theatre. His expertise, however, was in catering—hotels, schools, and now lucrative corporate accounts.

      Which was, Talia thought as she finished unpacking, the reason she was here, in a hotel on a wind-swept curve of northern California beach, about to take the first big step in her career. The thought turned her throat dry. She sank down on the edge of the bed and folded her hands in her lap.

      You can do this, she thought, meeting her eyes in the mirror. John wouldn’t have entrusted Miller International’s Executive Weekend to you if you weren’t up to it.

      Talia turned that over in her mind for a while. Of course she could do it. Two years working at a restaurant, four for a hotel chain, then three more at Diamond Food Services, working first in the kitchen, then in purchasing, finally in administration as John’s assistant, had given her the practical experience needed to temper the time she’d spent gaining a degree in hotel and restaurant management. She knew her stuff. There was nothing immodest about admitting it.

      She only wished she felt calmer. Talia, always practical, had planned her career with cool precision. The step up—the one she was about to take—had been one she’d expected in two years’ time. That it had fallen into her lap so soon was as jarring as it was exciting. Sometimes she had a suspicion that that was part of the reason John had given it to her.

      ‘This is liable to be a tough one, sweetheart,’ he’d said when the letter from Miller International had first reached his desk. ‘Their president says he wants us to set up a weekend retreat for upper-echelon execs; our choice of facility so long as it’s somewhere very private—his words—along the coast.’

      Talia had smiled. ‘Private, hmm? What does his company do?’

      Her boss had leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms behind his head, and grinned wickedly. ‘It makes money. If they want a secluded spot, they can have one.’ His grin had broadened. ‘In the old days, that would have meant they were into primal scream therapy for the overpaid and underworked,’ he’d said with the roguish aplomb of one who had survived the weirdness of California in the 1960s.

      Talia had nodded. ‘Right. Quiche and alfalfa sprouts. But surely that’s not what they want today?’

      ‘Not they, sweetheart. He. Mr Logan Miller. He’s Miller International—has been for the past forty years—and what he wants, he gets, even if it turns out to be strange.’ John had leaned forward and pushed the letter across the desk towards her. ‘Suppose you telephone him and find out what he has in mind.’

      The suggestion had surprised her. ‘Me? But that’s Harry’s job.’

      ‘Didn’t I tell you? I’ve asked him to head up the new office in Seattle.’ Her boss had winked. ‘You get to do the dirty deed instead.’

      Talia had tried to sound nonchalant, even though her heart was pounding. ‘Are you offering me Harry’s job?’ she’d asked.

      ‘Caught you by surprise, didn’t I?’ Laughter had glinted in John’s eyes. ‘You can’t

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