CHAPTER ONE

      KEIRA gazed up at the larger-than-life-sized portrait that was so skilfully lit. Eden Cassidy.

      Just two short days ago he had merely been the celebrated chief of Cassidy-Ford Publishing Corporation, the media conglomerate that owned the magazine where Keira worked as an assistant editor. Technically he was her boss but she’d never actually met the man whose name and face were known worldwide.

      Oh, she’d seen him from a distance at a meeting once and she had to admit he was nothing if not a dynamic speaker. And, to add even more colour, the head of Cassidy-Ford Publishing was also renowned as a man who spoke his mind, who definitely didn’t suffer fools gladly. His sparse, very short and to-the-point memos, bearing his strong, forceful signature, attested to that fact.

      And then he was regularly interviewed by the whole spectrum of the media who had made tracking him down into almost a national sport.

      Now Keira stood in the library of the Cassidy mansion north of Sydney gazing at Eden Cassidy’s lifelike image and she shivered with anticipation, mixed with a definite trace of uneasiness. For at some time this weekend she would surely have to come face to face with the man himself.

      And, in view of that small incident a short time ago, she had grave doubts that she had made the best of impressions.

      Not for the first time she admonished herself for allowing herself to be manoeuvred into this ambivalent position.

      Had it only been Thursday morning when Daniel Cassidy had come into her office with his ridiculous request? And as usual he’d interrupted her when she had been up to her ears in work.

      ‘Look, Daniel, I’m far too busy to be discussing this with you now. As well you know.’ Keira had berated him without glancing up from the stack of submissions on her desk.

      ‘All plain excuses, Keira. You could get this magazine out with your hands tied behind your back and your eyes closed.’ Daniel leant across her desk to blow a puff of breath lightly on her ear. ‘So, how about it?’

      ‘Daniel!’ Keira sat back in her chair, her fingers going involuntarily to her neck where a wisp of fine fair hair had escaped from her chignon. ‘Don’t do that!’

      ‘Ah ha! Now I have your attention.’ Daniel grinned at her engagingly.

      And that he was an extremely engaging young man, Keira couldn’t deny. Tall. Fair-haired. Blue-eyed. Intelligent. Rich. And, to top it all off, very nice.

      ‘Daniel, please.’

      ‘Why won’t you come with me?’ he asked earnestly.

      ‘Just one minor reason. Because I’m a decade older than you are, that’s why.’

      Daniel gave a scoffing laugh. ‘How you adults do exaggerate,’ he mocked. ‘You are but eight years—’

      ‘Nine,’ Keira put in, ‘which is nearly a decade.’

      ‘OK,’ Daniel acquiesced. ‘You are nine years my senior, which suits me just fine because I’m more