On the Secretary's Christmas List. Carole Mortimer

new one, actually,’ she mumbled softly.

      ‘Anyone I know …?’

      She bristled. ‘I don’t think that’s any of your business, Jackson.’

      Jackson forced himself to relax at the deserved rebuke. ‘I just thought perhaps I could vet him for you when he arrives.’ He arched a mocking brow. ‘You know—a man-to-man thing, to see if he measures up.’

      Bree’s lips thinned. ‘He isn’t coming here. I’m meeting him at a restaurant.’

      ‘Oh, that’s bad, Bree.’ He shook his head, taunting her. ‘You should never trust a man who isn’t gentleman enough to call and collect you for a date!’

      ‘Says the gentleman who rarely—if ever—collects his own dates!’ she retorted tartly.

      ‘I make a point of it.’ Jackson gave an unrepentant grin. ‘That’s how I know you shouldn’t trust a man like that!’

      Bree eyed him darkly. ‘I’ll bear your advice in mind.’

      In actual fact it was precisely due to Bree’s uncertainty about having dinner with Roger Tyler that she had decided to drive to the restaurant alone: at least that way Bree could drive herself home if Roger behaved in any way she found in the least objectionable.

      Jackson’s assumption when he went out earlier that the incoming telephone call would be Roger Tyler, confirming their two o’clock appointment, had been totally wrong; it had been someone else completely—another client confirming an appointment for next week. Roger Tyler hadn’t telephoned back at all, and neither had he answered any of Bree’s calls when she had attempted to inform him that Jackson was no longer available that afternoon. Instead Roger had appeared in person at Beaumont House promptly at two o’clock.

      Tall and dark, probably in his late thirties or early forties, and with a craggily handsome face, Roger Tyler hadn’t seemed too perturbed when Bree had smoothly delivered the excuse that Jackson wasn’t there because he had been called away on business. In fact the other man hadn’t seemed bothered at all—instead he had chatted away quite happily with Bree for over half an hour, culminating in an invitation to dinner that evening.

      Bree could only suppose that the ‘bimbo’ Jackson had referred to earlier hadn’t been willing to reschedule their date for the evening! Whatever the reason for Roger’s invitation, Bree had surprised herself by saying yes.

      She had no idea why.

      No, that wasn’t true; Bree knew exactly why she’d acted so completely out of character by accepting Roger Tyler’s dinner invitation. Because earlier she had realised that today was the one-year anniversary of her wedding that never was. In the circumstances Bree would probably have accepted a dinner invitation from the devil himself as a distraction from those crushing memories! Except the devil she knew hadn’t asked …

      Whenever Bree thought back to a year ago—which she tried to do as seldom as possible—it was never without feeling that same sting of humiliation she had suffered on the day in question. The day that had changed her life.

      Meaning to put up some curtains, Bree had gone to the house she and David had purchased together and had planned to move into after their Paris honeymoon only to discover David was already there. Not just David, but also her married sister Cathy. And, as Bree had discovered painfully, the two of them had been in bed together—in what should have been Bree and David’s marital bed.

      Not only had Bree called off the wedding, but the scandal of David and Cathy’s several-months-long affair had ripped a hole in Bree’s family that still hadn’t completely healed.