www.millsandboon.co.uk

      CHAPTER ONE

      SUCH a beautiful young woman would always turn heads, Holt thought. Stares were guaranteed, and he was a man who automatically registered the physical details of anyone who crossed his path, whether business or social. He never forgot faces. He never forgot names. It was a God-given asset. Now his eyes were trained on the mystery woman as she entered the banquet room on the arm of Marcus Wainwright, the fifty-plus member of one of the richest and longest established families in the country. The combined impact brought the loud buzz of conversation in the huge room to an abrupt halt.

      “I don’t believeit!”

      His date for the evening, Paula Rowlands, of Rowlands shopping malls fame, sounded as if she was on the verge of freaking out. “For crying out loud, Holt, that proves it! The gossip is true.” For added emphasis, she dug her long nails into the fine cloth of his dinner jacket. “Marcus has brought her to the social event of the year.”

      That was enormously significant. “At least she didn’t sneak in,” he said dryly, “though I’m sure the toughest bouncer wouldn’t have asked for ID. He’d have ushered her through with a ‘wow!'”

      Paula swung to face him. “Holt, really!” she chided. “She works in a florist shop!”

      “There goes the neighbourhood!”

      “God yes!” Paula moaned.

      It was obvious Paula thought they were on the same page. It didn’t occur to her he was being facetious. Paula was a snob. No doubt about it, but he liked her none the less. Snobbery was a minus, but Paula had a few pluses going for her. She was glamorous and generally good company both in and out of bed. The biggest plus for her among her wider circle of men friends was her billionaire father, George Rowlands. George was a genuine first-generation entrepreneur and a really decent guy. It was the Rowlands women, mother and daughter, Marilyn and Paula, neither of whom had worked a day in their lives apart from strenuous workouts in the gym, who suffered from delusions of grandeur.

      “She owns the business, I believe,” he tacked on. “Aunt Rowena told me only the other day when the rumours began to fly, she’s a genius at handling flowers.”

      Paula stared at him with dumbstruck eyes. “Handling flowers, Holt? Darling, you can’t be serious?”

      He laughed. “Is that you in your Queen Victoria mode? Actually I am. I didn’t say she pinched bucketloads from over neighbourhood fences and stacked them in the boot of her car. She apparently has a great talent for arranging flowers.”

      Paula continued to eye him incredulously. “How difficult is that?”

      “Oh, believe me, it’s an art form. It really is.” Hadn’t he pondered over what precisely had gone wrong with Marilyn Rowlands’s many unsuccessful attempts at the Rowlands mansion?

      “Joe the goose can arrange flowers,” Paula said complacently, supremely unaware she had inherited her mother’s “eye”. “The trick is to buy lots, then shove them in fancy vases.”

      “Too easy!” He continued to track the progress of Marcus and the beauty on his arm. She might have walked out of a bravura late nineteenth century painting, he decided, his attention well and truly caught. Singer Sargent or Jacque Emile Blanche perhaps? A lover of beauty in all its forms, for a moment he damned nearly forgot where he was. Small wonder Marcus had become infatuated.

      “Your great-aunt here tonight?” Paula asked, hoping the answer was no. Rowena Wainwright-Palmerston rather intimidated Paula, though she knew it wasn’t deliberate. “She looks great for her age,” she said in an unconsciously patronising voice.

      “Rowena looks great for any age,” Holt clipped off smartly, though his attention was fully employed studying the blonde vision.

      “Holt, baby?” Paula elbowed him in the ribs, trying to draw his attention back to her.

      He had to grimace. “What are you trying to do, maim me?”

      “Never!” She began to rhythmically smooth his back with her hands.

      “She’s extremely beautiful.” He felt a stab of alarm. He was very fond of Marcus. Protective as well. Whatever he had expected of Marcus’s shock lady friend, it wasn’t this, though his great-aunt had warned him.

       “She’s quite a remarkable young lady and, without question, well bred. Cool old-style beauty, if you know what I mean. Very Mittel Europa. Not a modern look at all. That would appeal to Marcus. There’s a story there, mark my words!”

      “I hope you noticed the hair?” A bridling Paula jolted him out of his thoughts again.

      “You’re not going to tell me you were born with copper hair?”

      Paula’s eyes flashed with resentment. “Just a few foils,” she lied. “Hers can’t be real! Where do you get that white blonde except from a bottle?”

      “Scandinavia, maybe?” he suggested. “Her surname is Erickson, I believe. Sonya Erickson. Bit of a clue. Norwegian background perhaps? Norway the Land of the Midnight Sun, birthplace of Ibsen, Grieg, Edvard Munch, Sigrid Undset, and, as I recall, the infamous Quisling.”

      Paula frowned. She didn’t know half those people. She’d seen Ibsen’s Hedda