CHAPTER ONE

      ‘I PRESUME you’ll be going to the wool fashion awards tonight?’ Deirdre Carstairs asked her son over lunch.

      ‘Unfortunately, yes,’ was his cool reply.

      ‘Why “unfortunately”? Fashion is your business, after all.’ And your life, she added silently, and with some irritation. Alan had always been a workaholic, but lately he was worse than ever, sometimes working all night. One would have thought that establishing a chain of very popular off-the-peg menswear stores all over Australia, as well as personally running the manufacturing establishments to fill them, would have been enough. Now he was planning on branching out into designer clothes as well.

      Deirdre suppressed a sigh. It was so difficult to tell Alan anything. He’d taken over as head of the family when he was only twenty, his father’s unexpected death from a heart attack having left the family’s clothes factory on the brink of receivership. Their home too had been found to be holding a second mortgage. Alan had had to work his fingers to the bone to pull them out of bankruptcy. But he’d succeeded, and succeeded very well. She was extremely proud of him.

      The one unfortunate result of his success, however, was that he’d become rather bossy. He expected people just to go along with whatever he wanted. It must have come as a considerable shock, Deirdre realised, when the one woman who’d managed to capture his heart had upped and married another man a few years back.

      Her head lifted, eyes narrowing with suspicion as she watched her son forking his fettuccine marinara into his mouth. ‘Is Adrianna going to be there?’ she asked casually.

      His shrug seemed non-committal, but he was a master at hiding his feelings. ‘I doubt it. Her label hasn’t been entered into the competitions. She rarely comes to Sydney any more.’ He lifted his dark, glossy head, his very male but rather cruel mouth curving back into a wry smile. ‘Stop fishing, Mother. The reason I don’t want to attend tonight is because I’m tired.’

      ‘Then don’t go. Stay home here and watch it on television with your poor old mum.’

      He laughed, and Deirdre wished he would laugh more often. Laughter lent some warmth to his coldly handsome face, and those hard blue eyes of his.

      ‘Poor old Mum, my foot. You’re not poor. I’ve made sure of that! And secondly, at fifty-five, you’re not old either. Why don’t you do me and yourself a favour and find some nice man to occupy your time? Then I won’t have to put up with your trying to organise my leisure time for me.’

      ‘Do you have any leisure time?’ she remarked archly.

      ‘Occasionally.’

      ‘Heaven knows when. Or what you do with it.’

      Alan’s laugh was dry. ‘Don’t you worry about what I do with my time, Mother. I’m a big boy now.’

      But Deirdre did worry about him. Since Adrianna’s rejection, Alan had not brought one woman home. She didn’t for one moment imagine her handsome son was celibate, but she shuddered to think he might be indulging in one-night stands rather than risk being hurt again. She did so want him to get married and have children, but she dared not broach the subject. He was very prickly about his private life.

      ‘Will Ebony be one of the models tonight, do you know?’ she asked instead.

      ‘I dare say,’ Alan returned in that same flat tone he always used when the subject of Ebony came up these days. Deirdre knew her son well enough to know that when he sounded his most calm he was, in fact, at his most annoyed.

      It was a wicked shame, she thought, that their once close relationship had been ruined by money. Ebony was a sweet girl, but too proud in Deirdre’s opinion. Fancy taking offence when she found out that her parents’ estate had been