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      CHAPTER ONE

      ‘MMM.’ Jodi could not resist sneaking a second appreciative look at the man crossing the hotel lobby.

      Tall, well over six feet, somewhere in his mid-thirties, dark-suited and even darker-haired, he had an unmistakable air about him of male sexuality. Jodi had been aware of it the minute she saw him walking towards the hotel exit. His effect on her was strong enough to make her pulse race and her body react to him in a most unusual and un-Jodi-like manner, and just for a second she allowed her thoughts to wander dreamily in a dangerous and sensual direction.

      He turned his head and for a shocking breath of time it was almost as though he was looking straight at her; as though some kind of highly intense, personal communication was taking place!

      What was happening to her?

      Jodi’s heart, and with it her whole world, rocked precariously on its oh-so-sturdy axis; an axis constructed of things such as common sense and practicality and doing things by the book, which had suddenly flung her into an alien world. A world where traitorous words such as ‘love at first sight’ had taken on a meaning.

      Love at first sight? Her? Never. Stalwartly, Jodi dragged her world and her emotions back to where they belonged.

      It must be the stress she was under that was causing her to somehow emotionally hallucinate!

      ‘Haven’t you got enough to worry about?’ Jodi scolded herself, far more firmly than she would ever have scolded one of her small pupils. Not that she was given to scolding them very much. No, Jodi loved her job as the headmistress and senior teacher of the area’s small junior school with a passion that some of her friends felt ought more properly to be given to her own love life—or rather the lack of it.

      And it was because of the school and her small pupils that she was here this evening, waiting anxiously in the foyer of the area’s most luxurious hotel for the arrival of her cousin and co-conspirator.

      ‘Jodi.’

      She gave a small sigh of relief as she finally saw her cousin Nigel hurrying towards her. Nigel worked several miles away in the local county-council offices and it had been through him that she had first learned of the threat to her precious school.

      When he had told her that the largest employer in the area, a factory producing electronic components, had been taken over by one of its competitors and could be closed down her initial reaction had been one of disbelief.

      The village where Jodi taught had worked desperately hard to attract new business, and to prevent itself from becoming yet another small, dying community. When the factory had opened some years earlier it had brought not just new wealth to the area, but also an influx of younger people. It was the children of these people who now filled Jodi’s classrooms. Without them, the small village school would have to close. Jodi felt passionately about the benefits her kind of school could give young children. But the local authority had to take a wider view; if the school’s pupils fell below a certain number then the school would be closed.

      Having already had to work hard to persuade parents to support the school, Jodi was simply not prepared to sit back whilst some arrogant, uncaring asset-stripper of a manufacturing megalomaniac closed the factory in the name of profit and ripped the heart out of their community!

      Which was why she was here with Nigel.

      ‘What have you found out?’ she asked her cousin anxiously, shaking her head as he asked her if she wanted anything to drink. Jodi was not a drinker; in fact she was, as her friends were very fond of telling her, a little bit old-fashioned for someone who had gone through several years at university and teacher-training college. She had even worked abroad, before deciding that the place she really wanted to be was the quiet rural heart of her own country.

      ‘Well, I know that he’s booked into the hotel. The best suite, no less, although apparently he isn’t in it at the moment.’

      When Jodi exhaled in relief Nigel gave her a wry look. ‘You were the one who wanted to see him,’ he reminded her. ‘If you’ve changed your mind…?’

      ‘No,’ Jodi denied. ‘I have to do something. It’s all over the village that he intends to close down the factory. I’ve already had parents coming to see me to say that they’re probably going to have to move away, and asking me to recommend good local schools for them when they do. I’m already only just over the acceptable pupil number as it is, Nigel. If I were to lose even five per cent of my pupils…’ She gave a small groan. ‘And the worst of it is that if we can only hang on for a couple more years I’ve got a new influx due that will take us well into a good safety margin, providing, that is, the factory is still operational. That’s why I’ve got to see this…this…’

      ‘Leo Jefferson,’ Nigel supplied for her. ‘I’ve managed to talk the receptionist into letting me have a key to his suite.’ He grinned when he saw Jodi’s expression. ‘It’s OK, I know her, and I’ve explained that you’ve got an appointment with him but that you’ve arrived early. So I reckon the best thing is for you to get up there and lie in wait to pounce on him when he gets back.’

      ‘I shall be doing no such thing,’ Jodi told him indignantly. ‘What I want to do is make sure he understands just how much damage he will be doing to this village if he goes ahead and closes the factory. And try to persuade him to change his mind.’

      Nigel