CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      CHAPTER ONE

      THE call came late on a Friday evening, when everyone else had left for the weekend. On the way out herself when the phone rang, Portia was tempted to leave the call to the answering service. But with an impatient sigh she turned back at last and picked up the receiver.

      ‘Whitefriars Estates. Good evening.’

      ‘Good evening. I am flying in from Paris tomorrow to see one of your properties. Your name, please?’

      The voice was male, French and imperious.

      ‘Miss Grant,’ said Portia crisply. ‘If you’ll just give me the details.’

      ‘First please understand that the appointment must be tomorrow evening. At five. I arranged this with your Mr Parrish.’

      Portia stiffened. ‘That’s very short notice, Monsieur—’

      ‘Brissac. But it is not short notice. Mr Parrish informed me last week that one of the partners at your agency was always on hand at weekends for viewings. He said it was merely a matter of confirmation. You are a partner?’ he added, with a pejorative note of doubt.

      ‘Yes, Monsieur Brissac, I am.’ Portia’s eyes narrowed ominously. Ben Parrish, one of the senior partners, had just left for a skiing weekend in Gstaad without a word about this peremptory Frenchman. ‘Perhaps you would tell me which property you have in mind and I’ll do my best to make the arrangements.’

      ‘I wish to inspect Turret House,’ he informed her, and Portia stood rooted to the spot.

      The property was not in London, as expected, but a three-hour drive away on the coast. But, more ominous than that, it was a house she’d hoped never to set foot in again as long as she lived. During the lengthy time it had been on their books Ben Parrish had always taken prospective buyers over Turret House. Not that there had ever been many. And none at all lately. The property was sticking. But personal feelings couldn’t be allowed to lose a sale.

      ‘Are you still there, mademoiselle?’

      ‘Yes, Monsieur Brissac. This is very short notice, but I’ll arrange my diary to fit the visit in.’

      ‘You will come yourself, of course.’

      Portia’s eyes glittered coldly. ‘Of course. My assistant will accompany me.’ She saw no reason to tell him that Biddy was at home, nursing a cold.

      ‘As you wish. I shall not, you understand, expect you to drive back to London afterwards,’ he informed her. ‘The Ravenswood Hotel is nearby. There is a double room reserved for you in the name of Whitefriars Estates. Please make use of it.’

      ‘That won’t be necessary,’ she said at once.

      ‘Au contraire. I shall require a return visit to Turret House very early the following morning.’

      ‘I’m afraid that’s not possible.’

      ‘But this was the arrangement made with Mr Parrish, mademoiselle. It was made clear that someone would be available to escort me round the property.’

      Ben Parrish might be one of her senior partners, but she would have a bone to pick with him when he came back from the piste. ‘As I said, I’ll cancel my private arrangements and meet you at Turret House, Monsieur Brissac,’ Portia assured him. ‘But a hotel room is unnecessary. I’m used to driving long distances.’

      ‘In this case it would be unwise. You must be available very early on Sunday. I return to Paris later in the morning.’

      Heaping vengeance on the absent Ben’s head, Portia had no option but to agree. ‘As you wish, Monsieur Brissac.’

      ‘Thank you, mademoiselle. Your name again, please?’

      ‘Grant.’

      ‘A demain, Miss Grant.’

      Until tomorrow. Which threatened to be very different from her original plans for Saturday. Her eyes stormy, Portia put the phone down, checked that Whitefriars Estates was secure for the night, and went home.

      Home was a flat in a building in Chiswick, with a fantastic view of the Thames and an equally fantastic mortgage. The apartment was a recent acquisition, with big rooms only sparsely furnished as yet. But the view was panoramic and the building secure, and Portia loved it. All her life she’d lived with other people in one way or another. But the moment she’d moved into the empty flat Portia had experienced such an exhilarating sense of liberation she never begrudged a minute of the years of hard work, both past and future, which made her pricey retreat possible.

      Despite her protests to the peremptory Monsieur Brissac, Portia had no private appointments to cancel. Her plan had been to rent some videos, send out for her favourite food, and do absolutely nothing the entire weekend. And do it alone. Something her male colleagues at the firm viewed as eccentric in the extreme.

      ‘A woman like you,’ Ben Parrish had informed her once, ‘should be lighting up some lucky bloke’s life.’

      An opinion Portia viewed as typically male. She liked her life the way it was, and the social side of it was busy enough, normally. But, as Ben Parrish had known very well, it was her turn to keep the weekend free, in case some well-heeled client should suddenly demand a viewing of one of the expensive properties handled by Whitefriars Estates. Her only cause for complaint was the fact that Turret House was the property in question this weekend.

      ‘You’re unnatural,’ her friend Marianne had complained once. She was on the editorial staff of a glossy magazine, rushed from one hectic love affair to another, and came flying to Portia for consolation