The Complete Boardroom Collection. Yvonne Lindsay

where did that leave her?

      Deny it as best she could, at that moment last night when Scott pressed his lips to hers...her poor parched heart had soaked in every precious second of that glorious intimacy and physical sensation like a desert in the rain.

      It frightened her just how much she needed someone in her life.

      But not just anyone. She wanted to be intimate with someone she could call her friend as well as her lover. Peter had never been her friend.

      Scott Elstrom was the last person she wanted to fall for. He was gorgeous and she had been more than tempted to spend the night with him. But then what? A few days of fun before she went back to work?

      She had never had a one-night stand in her life and this was not the best time to start.

      No. It would be better if she followed Scott’s example and put last night behind them and got back to being professional colleagues who would be working together for the next few days. Side by side. She could do that.

      Um. And the garden was suddenly full of a squadron of purple piglets in pink tutus singing as they flew across the sky.

      She let her head drop back and just sat there, listening to the sound of her breathing and gentle sobs in the darkness.

      Pathetic!

      It wasn’t the dark, or the silence.

      No, it was the crushing feeling of loneliness which drove her to feel sorry for herself. She had never got used to being so lonely. Amy was the only family she had left and she was currently in the depths of South America so it was silly to want to talk to her so very badly. Amy would ring or text the minute she could. She always did.

      And nobody was prouder than Toni.

      What had she promised Amy? This was a New Year. A fresh start.

      Stupid girl! She didn’t need to be alone if she didn’t want to be. She had friends. Real friends who would come around in an instant if she needed them.

      Toni rolled her shoulders back and was just about to pull herself to her feet when her cellphone rang out from her bag.

      Amy! She scrabbled around in her bag, terrified that she would ring off before she found her phone in the near darkness, and flicked it open, instantly creating a bright panel of light. Her shoulders slumped down in disappointment. It wasn’t her sister. It was an email.

      With a photo of the purple underpants she had modelled last evening at her birthday party. A small smile creased her lips and Toni blinked away her tears and sniffed. Apparently Scott had found the underwear under the sofa and it had looked vaguely familiar.

      Did the item belong to her or should he put it in Freya’s room?

      Toni giggled at the screen, tapped out a quick reply saying that she was claiming them but gift-wrapping was not necessary, thank you, and pressed the send button before she could change her mind.

      That outrageous man!

      But he had made her laugh and for that she was grateful.

      Grinning like mad, Toni quickly scanned the other messages from her work colleagues and pals and took a sharp intake of breath. It was a perfectly friendly and chatty email from the same team she had worked with on the documentary with Peter. Apparently Peter had just joined the company’s new production team, working on ideas for a five-part series on the legacy of the Raj in India. Houses and heritage. Wasn’t that exciting? Why didn’t she come along to the ideas meeting? Could be fun!

      She almost threw the smartphone at the wall.

      Peter.

      Toni pressed her hand to her mouth, and then wiped away the tears from her cheeks.

      Oh, what a fool she’d been.

      She’d been prepared to wait for Peter to make the first move and start dating her properly. Too busy with the project at work, he had said. The film production and editing had to be perfect—but then they could relax and spend a weekend away together and tell the other people at the media company office back in London that they were a couple. Surely she could wait a few more weeks?

      She had been his guilty little secret.

      Sordid. Dirty. Expendable.

      She had been the temporary stand-in girl he would simply throw away when he had used her enough to do his work for him. How many times had he asked her to cover up for him when he’d felt the need to sunbathe or shop?

      And once their film work was over? Then he would get back to his real girlfriend, who was working on a fashion shoot and designer shows in the Caribbean.

      Peter had deceived her. Tricked her. Used her for his own advantage. Amy had never liked Peter from the start and on the one occasion they had met in person had openly declared him to be a fake.

      Well, that was over now. She was done with being used by other people who lied to her. That was then and this was now.

      And she had waited long enough.

      Lesson learnt. No more waiting. No more putting things off until later.

      Toni jumped to her feet, suddenly energised and, shoving her arms into the sleeves of an old warm fleece jacket she kept by the door, she started pacing up and down to keep warm and to help clear her head.

      Houses and heritage, her armpits!

      What did Peter the flea know about heritage? He could learn a few things from Scott Elstrom, and people like him, whose life was a tribute to family heritage.

      Her steps slowed. Two hundred years of heritage, in fact.

      A crazy idea fluttered around inside her head.

      The media company she worked for was always looking for clever and special ideas and the creative director had a passion for British heritage. He had been heading up the government think tank on traditional crafts for years.

      What about traditional skills such as fine British mapmaking?

      Diving back into her bag, Toni quickly reread the email about Peter. Yes! They were using the same brilliant location scouts who had the most amazing talent for tracking down authentic buildings and sites to film historical dramas and documentaries.

      They would probably faint if they walked into Elstrom Mapping!

      Yes! She could see how the right director could come up with a brilliant proposal. And of course they would have to pay Scott for the exclusive use of the building for weeks, if not months!

      Before she could change her mind, Toni jogged up to her freezing-cold bedroom and quickly downloaded the photographs she had taken during the past two days on to her laptop computer. It only took a few minutes to compose a few lines of explanation and her suggestion and fire off the emails and photos to the location scouts and the creative director.

      The first reply came winging back before she had time to light the fire in the living room and make her hot chocolate. Every one of the scouts was pleading for more details and begging for an appointment.

      Toni sat back on the sofa in front of the fire, wrapped in a duvet, sipping her hot chocolate and then picked up her phone.

      Time to call Scott. This could be fun!

      * * *

      Scott carefully swung Freya’s hatchback around the corner from the main street and checked the name plate high on the wall of the end house. Toni had warned him that he should look out for a quiet cul de sac close to a park with trees lining the street.

      The house numbers on the terraced Victorian houses were mostly hidden behind leafy evergreens or elaborate railings but as his gaze scanned the houses he spotted a bright blue and white hand-painted sign attached to a stone gate pillar. Baldoni House. This was it. He pulled into a narrow parking spot a few metres away along the street and turned off the engine and sat in the car, gathering his thoughts.

      What was he doing in Hampstead