Emma couldn’t sleep. A mole hibernating for the winter couldn’t sleep with that racket going on upstairs. What on earth was Lawrence doing? She’d heard the feminine laughter that accompanied the general noise and mayhem and blushed to think what he might be up to. For a moment the thought had the power to wound but then irritation finally got the better of her and she threw back the bedcovers, shoved her feet into slippers and went through to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. Yawning as she filled the kettle, she glanced around the tiny, cramped kitchen with little pleasure. The pink paint she’d applied to the walls only six months ago in a bid to cheer the place up had already started to crack and peel. Her dark eyes seeking out the culprit, she noted the increasingly large patches of damp on the ceiling and on the walls. She’d been on to the landlord several times already about getting something done about it, but if past experience was anything to go by she’d be waiting for a response until she drew her old-age pension. The flat needed lots of work. More than Emma could afford. She was already fretting about how she was going to find the money to help her grandmother make necessary home improvements, so she hadn’t a cat’s chance in hell of finding enough cash to do up her own place.

      Sighing, she reached up to the hooks on the wall for a cheerful mug with a bright yellow daffodil on it, then threw in a teabag. Lucky old Lawrence, escaping to Cornwall. Right now she’d jump at the chance. Though of course not with him. They’d hardly exchanged two words since the afternoon he’d accused her of being frigid and possibly a lesbian and, quite frankly, Emma didn’t care. At first she thought she’d miss his regular visits and ‘putting the world to rights’ conversations, but how could she miss someone who wasn’t really the person she’d thought him to be in the first place? Lawrence hadn’t been a true friend. If he had, he wouldn’t have been so nasty to her when she’d told him his father wasn’t going to help get him out of the fix he was in. And he most definitely wouldn’t have expected her to use her feminine assets to get the result he’d wanted. He would have been grateful that she’d at least tried—at great personal risk too.

      But it was all academic now because Piers had decided to help his son after all and so Lawrence was packing up lock, stock and barrel to go down to Cornwall and a new start. Piers… When had she begun to address him with such startling familiarity? She’d only met the man twice, for goodness’ sake, and neither encounter had been exactly pleasant. Pouring hot water into the waiting mug, Emma bit down guiltily on her lip. That wasn’t exactly true, she recalled, remembering the way he had complimented her figure in her ‘tight’ black skirt. But the man was altogether too sure of himself, too arrogant and too…too rich! What else had he been doing but playing games, seeking her out at the restaurant where she worked? Perhaps he’d had a slow day at the stock exchange and was looking for some kind of diversion? Yeah…as if a man like Piers Redfield had to resort to chasing two-a-penny waitresses to get his kicks these days!

      But all the same, the man had got to her. That fact alone scared Emma witless. After an abortive attempt at a relationship shortly after her nineteenth birthday, Emma had more or less decided on the single life. The man she’d been involved with had been an economics lecturer at her secretarial college who’d told her at the time that he was divorced and living alone. Three months into the relationship Emma had found out that he was still married, living quite amicably with his wife and was the father of two young children. His deceit had made her feel used and dirty, and merely confirmed what she’d known all along—that she was better off on her own. She hadn’t even wanted to stay and get her diploma. Instead she’d decided on a complete change of pace and, at her friend Fleur’s instigation, had gone to work for Liz and Adam Morrison at The Avenue, a popular and trendy bistro not far from where Emma lived.