CHAPTER ONE

      ASTRA stared incredulously at her immediate boss. ‘You’re saying he wants us, Yarroll Finance, to work out some sort of financial package for him?’ she questioned disbelievingly.

      ‘It hasn’t got that far,’ Norman Davis cautioned. ‘Mr Baxendale made contact this morning while you were out. Apparently word has reached him of our dynamic financial adviser, and he wants to see you.’

      ‘Me!’ she exclaimed. ‘Mr Baxendale wants to see me?’

      ‘You,’ Norman Davis confirmed.

      Astra was stunned. She knew, without false modesty, that she was good at her job. But that Sayre Baxendale, a board member of Blyth Whitaker International—and a man to be reckoned with, according to a report she had read in some financial paper only last week—should consult them was astounding. That he should approach Yarroll Finance when it came to matters of personal finance was staggering enough—and it had to be personal finance if she was involved, because that was the area in which she excelled. But that he should ask for her, in particular, to talk facts and figures with was astonishing.

      ‘You’re sure it’s me he wants to see?’ she questioned, her habit of double-checking everything to do with her work starting to kick in.

      ‘If you’re Miss Astra Northcott,’ Norman Davis beamed. Yarroll Finance was a highly respected company; to have a director of Blyth Whitaker International on their books was yet another indication of their first-class reputation in the world of finance.

      Astra stared solemnly at him. She was twenty-two and was young, she knew, to hold the position she did in a firm of such superior standing. But she had studied hard for her qualifications. Had worked hard and, given that she seemed to have a natural flair for figures and hard work, this—to be asked for personally by such an esteemed client, and client he would be if she had to work twenty-five hours a day to get him the package he wanted—seemed to her to be the very ultimate of success in the finance world.

      Then she allowed herself a smile. Her lovely lips parted to reveal beautiful white, perfectly even teeth, her happiness showing in the large green depths of her beautiful eyes. ‘I’d better ring him to make an appointment,’ she suggested. ‘Do you have his home number?’

      ‘The appointment’s already made,’ her boss informed her cheerfully. ‘Sayre Baxendale’s a very busy man. He’ll see you at his office at two-thirty tomorrow afternoon.’

      Astra would have liked to have fixed a mutually convenient time—she knew she was scheduled to be busy elsewhere at two-thirty tomorrow, and hated breaking appointments. But he who paid the piper called the tune, and apparently what Mr Baxendale wanted Mr Baxendale got. Two-thirty tomorrow was convenient for him—end of story.

      Her flicker of irritation with Sayre Baxendale at what to her seemed to be a mite high-handed had long since gone by the time she arrived home that night. She’d had a busy day, and it wasn’t over yet.

      She took her briefcase into her study, but before she started work again she went and took a shower, put a delicious-looking lasagne in the microwave to defrost and spent an hour unwinding from the demands of the day.

      If, that was, thinking about tomorrow’s appointments could be called unwinding. Thankfully, in order to accommodate Sayre Baxendale, she had been able to re-schedule tomorrow’s original two-thirty appointment; things had worked out well, as it happened, because the alternative time now suited her client better.

      Astra went over again all she had been able to glean that day about the man she was to see tomorrow. Though what she had found out did not amount to very much, she realised. She had known already that he was on the board of Blyth Whitaker, a company with many subsidiary companies but dealing for the most part in manufacturing industries. Today’s trawl had revealed he was thirty-six—younger than she had supposed a man of his business repute to be. She had learned that, while never lacking some sensational-looking female to squire around, he was unmarried.

      So what was this bachelor director, presumably without children, doing looking to Yarroll Finance for some sort of financial package? Astra stepped from her shower, donned a robe, fixed herself a salad to go with the lasagne and continued to question.

      Without a doubt, Blyth Whitaker fielded their own finance department—so why was he coming to Yarroll Finance? Astra was munching her way through her meal when she settled for the only logical answer—Sayre Baxendale must want to keep