Modern Romance - The Best of the Year. Miranda Lee

column. She isn’t the type.’

      ‘It wasn’t Vivienne. It was her ex-fiancé.’

      ‘Ex-fiancé... Good Lord, when did that happen? She was solidly engaged last time I saw her a few weeks back.’

      ‘Yes, well, Daryl broke off their engagement about a month ago. Told her he’d fallen in love with someone else. The poor girl was shattered, but she was very brave and soldiered on. Of course, the rat claimed he hadn’t cheated on her whilst they were still engaged, but yesterday’s paper proved that was just rubbish.’

      ‘For pity’s sake, Nigel, just tell me what was in the darned paper!’

      ‘The thing is, the girl Daryl dumped Vivienne for wasn’t just any old girl. He left her for Courtney Ellison. You know...? Frank Ellison’s spoiled daughter. Vivienne did the decorating job on the harbourside mansion you built for Ellison, so I guess that’s how the two lovebirds met. Anyway, the bit in the gossip column was announcing their engagement. In the photos—there were several—the Ellison girl is sporting a diamond engagement ring the size of an egg—as well as a much bigger baby-bump, meaning their affair’s been going on for quite some time.

      ‘Naturally, there was no mention of Courtney’s handsome husband-to-be having been recently engaged to another woman. Darling Daddy would have quashed that. You don’t get to be a billionaire mining magnate in this country without having lots of connections in the media. As you can imagine, Vivienne is very cut up about it. She was in tears on the phone yesterday, which is not like her at all.’

      Jack could not have agreed more. Tears were not Vivienne’s style. He’d never met any female as cool and collected as Vivienne. But he supposed everyone had their breaking point. He shook his head, regretting now that he’d recommended her to Frank Ellison. Jack hated to think that he was in some way responsible for Vivienne’s unhappiness. But how could he possibly have known that Ellison’s man-eating maniac of a daughter would get her claws into Vivienne’s fiancé?

      Still...if ever there was a man willing and ready to be eaten by the likes of Courtney Ellison, it was Vivienne’s now ex-fiancé.

      Jack had only met Daryl once—when he’d briefly dropped in on Classic Design’s Christmas party last year—but once had been enough to form an opinion. Okay, so darling Daryl was movie-star good-looking. And charming, he supposed, if you liked silver-tongued talkers who smiled a lot, touched a lot and called their fiancée ‘babe’. Clearly, Vivienne did, since she’d been planning on marrying him.

      It saddened Jack that Vivienne had been unlucky enough to lose her heart to one of that ilk, but he had no doubt that she would, in time, see that she’d had a narrow escape from long-term misery as a result of Daryl’s defection. Meanwhile, the last thing that girl needed was to be allowed to wallow in her present misery. Jack understood that Vivienne was probably feeling wretched, but nothing would be achieved by cutting herself off from the one thing she was good at and would make her feel good about herself: her work.

      ‘I see,’ he said, quickly deciding on a course of action. ‘You wouldn’t have Vivienne’s address, would you, Nigel? I’d like to send her some flowers,’ he added before Nigel gave him some bulldust about privacy issues.

      Nigel stared at Jack for a long moment before looking up the company files on his computer and writing down the address.

      ‘I don’t like your chances,’ he said as he handed the address over.

      ‘My chances of what?’ Jack replied, poker-faced.

      Nigel smiled a dry smile. ‘Come now, Jack, you and I both know you don’t want Vivienne’s address just to send her flowers. You’re going to hotfoot it over to her place and try to get her to do whatever it is you want her to do. Which is what, by the way? Another retirement-home project?’

      ‘No,’ Jack said, despite thinking that Francesco’s Folly would make a perfect retirement home, when and if he ever actually retired. ‘It’s a personal project, a holiday house I’ve bought which badly needs redecorating. Look, it’ll do Vivienne good to keep busy.’

      ‘She’s very fragile at the moment,’ Nigel warned. ‘Not everyone is as tough as you, Jack.’

      ‘I’ve often found that the gentler sex are a lot tougher than we men think they are,’ Jack said as he stood up and extended his hand in parting.

      Nigel tried not to wince when Jack’s large hand closed around his much smaller one. But truly, the man didn’t know his own strength sometimes. Didn’t know women as well as he thought he did, either. No way was Vivienne going to let herself be bulldozed into working for him. Aside from the fact that she was in a dreadful emotional state at the moment, she’d never overly liked the owner of Stone Constructions—something which Jack obviously didn’t know.

      But privately she’d expressed the opinion to Nigel that Jack was a pain in the neck to work for, a driven workaholic with impossibly high standards which, whilst admirable in one way, could be very trying. Of course, he did pay very well, but that wasn’t going to help him where Vivienne was concerned. Money had never interested her all that much, possibly because she’d inherited plenty of her own when her mother had died a couple of years ago.

      ‘If you want some advice,’ Nigel called after Jack as he headed for the door, ‘Actually taking Vivienne some flowers—not red roses, mind you—might improve your chances of success.’

      Though Nigel seriously doubted it.

      Copyright © 2014 by Miranda Lee

       When Falcone’s World Stops Turning

      Abby Green

       ‘Samantha.’ Rafaele smiled. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me in? It’s cold out here.’

      Sam’s hand clenched tightly around the door. Panic rushed into her blood. Finally rousing her.

      ‘Now isn’t a good time. I thought I made it clear that I’m not interested.’

      A dull flush accentuated Rafaele’s cheekbones, but Sam was barely aware of it when she heard the high-pitched, ‘Mummy!’ which was accompanied by small feet running at full speed behind her.

      She felt Milo land at her legs and could almost visualise his little round face peeping out to see who was at the door. As if she were trying in vain to halt an oncoming train, Sam said in a thready voice, ‘Now really isn’t a good time.’

      Rafaele stared at Milo for what seemed like an age. He frowned and then looked as if someone had just hit him in the belly. Dazed, he glanced up at Sam and she knew exactly what he was seeing. Her eyes were wide and stricken, set in a face leached of all colour.

      Panicked. Guilty.

      Just like that something in his eyes turned to ice and she knew that he knew.

       BLOOD BROTHERS

       Power and passion run in their veins

      Rafaele and Alexio have learned that to feel emotion is to be weak. Calculated ruthlessness brings them immense success in the boardroom and in the bedroom. But a storm is coming with the sudden appearance of a long-lost half-brother and three women who will change their lives for ever …

      Read Rafaele Falcone’s story in: WHEN FALCONE’S WORLD STOPS TURNING February 2014

      Only one woman has come close to touching this brooding Italian’s cold heart, and he intends to have her once more. But Samantha Rourke has a secret that will rock his world in a very different way…

      Read Alexio Christakos’s story in: WHEN CHRISTAKOS MEETS HIS MATCH April 2014

      His