His Love-Child. Jacqueline Baird

raising his sister’s suspicions. ‘So where is your new tenant? I think she said her name was Willow. Tall with black hair. I met her in the kitchen last night.’

      All four girls started to laugh and the blonde answered. ‘I’m the new tenant, Emma. You must mean The Mole, and she’s gone.’

      Disappointment hit him like a punch in the stomach, and he wanted to yell, Gone where? But, hiding his shock at the information, Theo queried lightly, ‘The Mole? Why do you call her that?’ Willow had lied to him. She was not the new student in the house, and she had obviously left without saying a word to him. He told himself not to worry—after all, Anna and her friends knew who she was. With a bit of careful questioning it should not be too hard to find out where Willow was and get her back, and he wanted her back.

      ‘She and I attended the same convent boarding-school together. It was popular with families in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The Mole was Willow’s nickname,’ Emma answered. ‘Think Wind in the Willows and with a name like Willow and all that black hair, it was obvious. She was much smaller then and had her head buried in a book all the time, so the name sort of stuck, I suppose. She was four or five years behind me, and never had much to say. I don’t really know her all that well. We tried our best to get her involved last night but without much luck; she vanished about midnight to her room.’

      Theo stilled. Not her room, his. The mention of a convent school made him feel decidedly queasy. But Theo did not betray what he was thinking. ‘She didn’t look much like a mole to me, with a jewel in her belly and a skirt that barely covered her buttocks,’ he drawled sardonically.

      The laughter erupted again and this time Anna answered. ‘Well, it was a Tarts and Vicars party, not that you would notice, Theo.’

      ‘A Tarts and Vicars…’ he repeated, his darkly handsome face creasing in a frown. ‘You mean you deliberately dressed up like tarts?’ he asked angrily, amazed that his own sister could be so dumb. Surely she knew what kind of signal scanty clothes sent out to the male sex.

      ‘Yes.’ Anna grinned at him. ‘But that doesn’t mean we are. So you can get your older-brother disapproving scowl off your face.’

      The trouble was, Theo realised belatedly, he had reacted with just such a baseless foundation last night when he had seen the lovely Willow, and he wasn’t proud of the fact.

      ‘As for The Mole… Willow Blain,’ Emma amended when he shot her a dark glance, ‘I did my best to get her involved and lent her a stick-on belly-button gem and some of my clothes so she would blend in, but—’ she glanced down at her own body, and then flirtatiously back at Theo ‘—as you can see I’m quite small and I could not believe how tall Willow had grown in the years since we last met.’

      Theo’s memory summoned up all too vividly Willow’s tall, lithe body. The brilliant blue eyes and skin as smooth as silk, and his body immediately reacted with shocking enthusiasm. But his incisive brain also reminded him of the face scrubbed free of make-up, and the stained bed, and just as quickly his heated response was quenched. Anger and confusion raged though him, the latter emotion not one he was familiar with. When he could trust his voice he asked abruptly, ‘So Willow is not at university with you?’ He rose to his feet. Theo suddenly had a horrible premonition he was not going to like what he was about to hear.

      ‘Good heavens, no,’ Emma said with a giggle. ‘She was only here because my father has known Mrs Blain for years; she is employed by the diplomatic corps and is in India at the moment. Anyway, my dad asked if we could put Willow up for the night, because her mother did not like the idea of her being on her own in a London hotel, especially as it was her eighteenth birthday. She only left school yesterday and she had to catch a flight out of Heathrow this morning to join her mother.’

      ‘Why are you so interested, Theo?’ Anna asked, her brown eyes, full of merriment, resting on his face. ‘Surely you didn’t fancy her? Especially when the lovely Dianne has been on the telephone countless times already this morning. I think Willow took the first call before she left and I have fielded the rest. You’d better ring Dianne back; she was beginning to sound frantic.’

      Not half as frantic as Theo felt. His stomach churned and he was savagely angry with the four grinning girls, but even more so with himself. Theo could not believe he had been so arrogantly self-centred and had seduced a beautiful, innocent young girl into his bed without a second thought. How could he have been so blind not to have seen that, beneath the appalling make-up and clothes, Willow was barely eighteen.

      ‘Theo,’ Anna prompted, ‘are you going to ring Dianne?’

      ‘No. We split up, and if she calls tell her I am out.’ Glad of the excuse and sick to his stomach, Theo stormed out of the kitchen, and the house.

      CHAPTER TWO

      SEATED at the circular dining table in a conference room of an exclusive London hotel, Willow wished she could just get up and walk out. Unfortunately her publishing company had insisted she attend. Her third novel, A Class Act Murder, had been nominated for the Crime Writer’s Prize, and Willow stood a good chance of winning.

      More importantly, an appointment had been arranged at five this evening for Willow to meet American producer, Ben Carlavitch, to discuss the proposal of buying the film rights to the book. If by some miracle Willow won the prize it would ensure she got a much better deal.

      Three days ago, Willow had been thrilled when Louise, her editor, had informed her about meeting Carlavitch. It had meant staying in London overnight, but excitedly she had agreed. However, Willow was now beginning to wish she hadn’t bothered.

      She glanced around the room full of intense literary people, and felt hopelessly out of place. She had left school at eighteen and had become a writer more by accident than design. She loved reading, especially crime novels, and at the age of twenty she had decided to try to write one. Now, seven years and three books later, she found herself, much against her better judgement, in the spotlight.

      The award winner was to be announced after lunch, and Willow wished it were over and done with. She felt pretty certain that she had no hope of winning; the other five nominees were all well-established crime writers.

      But two hours later Willow walked out of the conference room in a daze. She had won. Her acceptance speech was a blur. She had immediately called her son, Stephen, on her editor’s mobile and told him the news before being swamped with people wishing to congratulate her.

      She still felt weak at the knees with excitement and was grateful for the steadying hand of her editor on her arm as they approached the lift.

      ‘We have to meet our MD and company lawyer in Reception, and then across town to meet Carlavitch. He is really enthusiastic about your book,’ Louise said, grinning happily. ‘Especially after you winning the award, the publicity will boost our bargaining power immensely. You have it made, Willow. Carlavitch is leaving for Los Angeles later tonight, so we have to make the most of this opportunity, and hopefully secure the deal.’

      ‘What is going on?’ Theo Kadros asked the hotel manager as a reporter and cameramen he recognised from the national press hurriedly crossed the foyer. ‘You know the company policy: no reporters are allowed to hassle the celebrity guests,’ he said curtly.

      Theo, as the owner of a multinational company that dealt with property worldwide, including a string of exclusive hotels, had arrived in London this morning on business. As always he was in the process of making a quick inspection of the hotel lobby. Experience had taught him that the unheralded visit gave him a much better idea of how his hotels were being run.

      The manager’s smile slipped a little. ‘Strictly speaking the person in question was not a celebrity when she booked in; no one had ever heard of her. We are hosting the Crime Writer’s Prize ceremony lunch, and all the excitement is because the author J. W. Paxton has been announced the winner.’

      ‘Good choice. I read his latest book and thought it was excellent. However, I would hardly have thought the ceremony warranted attention by the national press. It must be a slow news day,’ Theo