CHAPTER ONE

      ‘I AM NOT serving that man on table nine,’ Kat Winwood said to her co-worker Meg on her way through to the café kitchen. Aspiring actor she might be, but being polite to that Savile Row–suited, silver-tongued smart ass was way outside Kat’s repertoire. She couldn’t afford to lose this job—not unless she got the dream part in the London stage play. The role that would launch her career so she would never have to wait on another table or do another crappy—no pun intended—toilet-paper advertisement.

      Meg glanced at the man before looking back at Kat. ‘Isn’t that Flynn Carlyon? The hotshot celebrity lawyer to those famous theatre actors Richard and Elisabetta Ravensdale?’

      ‘Yes.’ Kat gritted her teeth and unloaded the tray, stabbing the knives into the dishwasher basket as if it were Flynn Carlyon’s eye sockets. How had he tracked her down? Again?

      Kat didn’t want her co-workers or her new boss to know she was Richard Ravensdale’s scandalous secret. The secret child of his two-night-stand hotel barmaid.

      His love child.

      Ack. Thinking about the tacky words was bad enough. Seeing them splashed all over every London tabloid for the last three months had been nothing short of excruciating. Toenails-torn-off-with-pliers excruciating. What had love had to do with her conception? She was the product of lust. The dirty little secret Richard had paid to be