Maharaja's Mistress. Susan Stephens

      Careless. As if Ram wouldn’t know the hottest place in town. ‘You’ve heard of it?’

      ‘Enough to know it won’t be open at six.’

      Second careless mistake. Not even the bar would be open at that time, Mia realised, remembering too late what the girls had told her. Plus she had to face the embarrassing fact that Ram was only arranging to see her early on in the evening so he had the rest of the night left to do his thing. ‘I don’t finish work until six—can’t we make it later?’ Giving her time for a major fashion overhaul courtesy of the girls—plus she’d need a wax, pluck, polish, fake-bake—She’d settle for a miracle. She might not be Ram’s idea of a good-looking woman, but there was such a thing as pride.

      ‘Come over to the hotel straight from work, Mia,’ Ram said, ignoring her suggestion. ‘I’ll still be working on the car, so I’ll be ready for some fresh air by then.’

       Nice to know she would be a welcome substitute for an oily rag.

      But she could still rescue something from the situation. The smell of hairspray filled the air here at the salon—and what little air was left to breathe was filled with the overwhelming floral scent-bomb of her employer’s signature perfume. In his own way, like Ram, Monsieur Michel was a stranger to restraint. Parfait. Ram would love it here. Not. Throwing Ram off balance might be the one chance she had to persuade him to take her on as his co-driver. ‘As I’m the one doing you the favour I think you should come here…’

      And now she could only wait.

      It was such a long wait Mia began to wonder if Ram had gone to sleep. ‘Six o’clock at La Maison Rouge?’ she prompted.

      ‘La Maison Rouge?’ he drawled as if she’d pulled him from reading a book. ‘Isn’t that the glitzy hairdressing salon on the main drag?’

      ‘There’s no need to sound quite so surprised.’

      ‘I’m just surprised you’re working there. What happened to your career in interior design?’

      ‘Things…’ Mia grimaced as she glanced into the mirror. Who would want to employ an interior designer with cheeks the texture of a rotting beam? Okay, slight exaggeration, but with her scars she wasn’t going to risk it, whereas Monsieur Michel had dragged her in from the street saying she had the most fascinating ‘look’ he had ever seen—and she’d been too stunned by Monsieur’s lilac eyeshadow to argue.

      ‘Are you any good at what you do?’ Ram demanded, snapping Mia back to full attention.

      ‘I welcome clients into the salon, Ram. I book appointments. I call the clients by name—and I smile. Not much room for error there.’

      ‘As long as they don’t let you loose with a pair of hairdressing scissors.’

      He was remembering the time she had chopped off the tail of his prize horse when she’d been a twelve-year-old grooming enthusiast. ‘See you here at six?’ She held her breath.

      ‘Maybe…’

      Was that a smile in his voice? The line clicked and died before she could decide.

      Well, she’d thrown her eyepatch into the ring, and now she just had to wait and see what fate had in store for her—though there was nothing to stop her helping fate along a little bit, Mia concluded as she placed a second call to girls with more fashion savvy than she would ever have.

      Chapter Two

      LIFE never failed to surprise Ram. Mia Spencer-Dayly turning up out of the blue took him right back to his days at boarding school in England when he’d been vastly attracted to the chaotic lifestyle of the Spencer-Daylys. As he’d been brought up by servants, a family home, however disorganised, had seemed like heaven to him, and when Tom had invited him back in the holidays Mia had always been the main attraction—constantly playing tricks on him, when everyone back home treated him like a god.

      But there was a puzzle here. He and Tom had kept in touch, but Tom never mentioned his sister and he had never asked. He and Tom had always respected each other’s confidences, and though he had often wondered about Mia, he hadn’t wanted to pry into her life. Yet here she was in Monte Carlo, offering to be his co-driver—

      Could he accept Mia’s offer?

      And open Pandora’s box?

      Mia was his best friend’s baby sister and therefore untouchable, but there had always been a spark between them. Back in the day that had manifested itself as constant taunting, teasing, bickering—but now…

      Mia was all grown up. And he was experienced enough to know that if that same fire existed between them—and this telephone conversation seemed to suggest that it did—that persistent little spark could flare into an inferno—

       Since when did he draw back from playing with fire?

      This time he should—

      And maybe he didn’t want to.

      Sex…Was never far from his mind, and he couldn’t pretend he hadn’t imagined taming the wildcat when they’d been younger. Mia’s unaffected charm—her spirit, her quirky, contrary, upbeat nature—had always been enough to goad him to the point of distraction, and when the explosion came he fully expected the result to be everything it promised to be—

       Which was why he must never touch her…

      But it didn’t hurt to meet for a drink. Plus Mia had always been one of the sharpest tools in the box and he could use a keen pair of eyes reading the route for him tomorrow. He might consider using her. Why not? He didn’t want to pull out of the race at this late stage so he couldn’t afford to be proud. And having won the junior section of several world class rallies certainly put Mia Spencer-Dayly in with a shout.

      Monte Carlo equalled more, Mia mused, taking a deep breath as she prepared to start work at the glamorous hairdressing salon—more money, more glamour, more security, more everything. Definitely more intrigue than anywhere else on earth.

      Which she would be adding to tonight when she met Ram—

       When she met Ram…the Maharaja…

      The man everyone was talking about. It hardly seemed possible. And what would her old childhood friend make of her new persona? She’d always been a bit of an oddball when it came to fashion, but her most recent look was what you might call a bit of a change from lollipops and pigtails…

      As she examined her reflection in the mirror Mia remembered the day she had breezed into Monsieur Michel’s salon to ask for a job. The canny old survivor had quickly guessed she had no qualifications in the hairdressing industry. She was only lucky that her noble-sounding name had got her foot in the door. It turned out that Monsieur’s troubled early life had left him with a weakness for the sort of eccentric folk who bumbled along the best they could in genteel poverty as Mia’s parents always had. Mia would be his meet-and-greet girl, Monsieur had declared, removing at a stroke any possibility of an amateur snipping dead ends from his duchesses.

      Monsieur had seen the lot over the years, and instead of turning his face away from Mia’s injuries, which she dreaded—or gushing over her, which was almost worse—the eccentric proprietor of Monte Carlo’s most glamorous beauty salon had promptly renamed her Arabella, the Terror of the Seas, after the infamous pirate queen, Arabella Drummond, insisting Mia ditch her health scheme patch and adopt the jewelled creation he had specially created for her.

      The novelty of wearing a costume, of which the eyepatch was just a small part, had held immediate appeal. The dressing up box had been Mia’s favourite escape at home—but this was fancy dress taken to new and exotic flights of fancy. She hadn’t known such fabulous outfits existed, or could be made—but then she hadn’t had much experience of theatrical costumiers before. Her dark, spiky hair lent itself to dramatic make-up, Monsieur Michel had insisted—sympathetically leaving