PROLOGUE

      Gideon

      GREAT-AUNT FLO WAS pacing my office.

      Seventy-five-year-olds, regardless of how sprightly they still were, had no business pacing three months after double hip-replacement operations.

      Normally I welcomed her out-of-the-blue visits, because out of all my blood relatives, she was the only one I could tolerate for more than five minutes. Which was great, because I adored every wrinkled inch of her.

      Normally that adoration was returned.

      Today, however, every look she speared at me from her light blue eyes sparked an unsettling amount of disappointment.

      My nape tightened.

      I ran through the list of possible unsavoury things I’d done since I last saw her—bloody hell, there were a lot—and tuned back in just as she gave a melodramatic sigh.

      ‘The last straw was when they called you a reckless playboy.’

      I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. ‘That’s absurd, Aunt Flo. For starters, I’m most definitely not a boy. If we weren’t related, I’d drop my trousers and prove it to you right now.’

      Nelly, Aunt Flo’s trusted assistant, choked, spilling the tea she was pouring.

      Aunt Flo clicked her tongue. ‘Gideon Alexander Mortimer, this is serious. And no, you can’t charm your way out of it.’

      I straightened from where I was perched on the corner of my desk and pulled out a chair. ‘Please sit down, Flo. You’re making me dizzy.’

      ‘Because you’re hung-over again?’ she sniped.

      I wasn’t, and I was more than a little disconcerted by her sharp tone. Usually Florence Jane Mortimer, known as Flo to her nearest and dearest, was soft-spoken, endlessly indulgent and thoroughly enjoyed my brand of wicked humour. Apparently not today.

      ‘No, I’m not hung-over,’ I stated truthfully. But I could’ve done with more than the two snatched hours of sleep after ending a call with Vadim Ilyev, the Russian businessman whose delay tactics on my multibillion-pound deal had made my life hell for the past few months.

       Note to self: never start a conversation with an intransigent Russian after midnight.

      ‘The senior board members are at their wits’ end.’

      I snapped into full focus. ‘What?’ She was talking business. I never tuned out anything to do with the company.

      Her lips pursed as she accepted the tea from Nelly and took a delicate sip. ‘The Mortimer Group has a long, untarnished history of excellence.’

      ‘Yes, one whose final chapter would’ve been written without a happy ending six years ago if I hadn’t stepped in,’ I muttered under my breath.

      ‘Don’t be a braggart, Gideon. You know how much I despise conceited men.’

      My frown deepened. ‘What’s going on, Flo? Usually you’re the first to laud my achievements to anyone who’ll listen.’

      She took another dainty sip, her gaze firmly avoiding mine. ‘The board has grown tired of your extracurricular antics.’

      ‘Doesn’t the very definition of extracurricular mean that it’s my business alone?’ I asked as reasonably as I could manage.

      ‘Not when you’re the head of a multibillion-pound corporation, no.’

      Now it was my turn to pace.

      There’d been growing rumblings about my work hard, party harder lifestyle recently, most likely because it was a healthy, fully fuelled juggernaut I had no intention of parking any time soon. But in light of the fact that I’d single-handedly dragged TMG from the dark ages and made it insanely profitable meant those rumblings had been behind my back. No one dared to question Gideon Mortimer about what he got up to when he wasn’t expertly manning the helm of the most profitable construction company in the western hemisphere.

      Besides, Aunt Flo had been my bulwark against all that nonsense. A five-time divorcee, she was used to scandal and gossip, and at seventy-five still entertained the occasional gentleman caller in her Fitzrovia house. She supported me, too, because she liked to give her various stick-up-their-arses nieces and nephews a moderately arthritic middle finger.

      On top of that, she was the only one who knew what had really