British Bachelors: Gorgeous and Impossible. Jessica Hart
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black tablet computer, and swiped across the screen with her forefinger—being careful not to damage her new fingernails, which still carried the silver and purple glitter that had been the hit of the last show party in Hong Kong.
‘Brightmore Press. Sound familiar?’
‘Maybe,’ he drawled. ‘And why should that matter to me?’
Lexi’s poor overworked brain spun at top speed.
He was alone in the villa. This was the correct address. And Mark was familiar with Brightmore Press. Lexi put those three factoids together and came up with the inevitable conclusion.
Mark Belmont was the mystery celebrity she had been assigned to work with.
And the bubble of excitement and enthusiastic energy that had been steadily inflating on the long journey from Hong Kong popped like an overstretched balloon.
Of all the rotten luck.
She needed the job so badly. Running a home in central London wasn’t cheap, and this bonus would have made a big difference to how quickly she could start the renovations. All her plans for the future relied on having her own home office where she could write her children’s books full-time. Walking away from this job would set her back months.
She stared at him wide-eyed for a few seconds, before sighing out loud.
‘Oh, dear. I hate it when this happens. But it does explain why you didn’t meet me at the harbour.’
Mark shifted his legs shoulder-width apart and crossed his arms. ‘Meet you? No, I don’t think so. Now, let me make myself quite clear. You have two minutes to explain before I escort you from my private home. And please don’t think I won’t. I’ve spent more time than I care to think about giving press conferences. My office has a catalogue of past interviews and press statements, covering every possible topic of conversation. I suggest that you try there—because I have absolutely no intention of giving you an interview, especially when you seem intent on damaging my property. Am I getting through to you?’
‘Your property? Oh, I’m so sorry,’ she murmured, scrabbling to pick up the picture and brushing off any dust from the silver frame. ‘I did knock, but there was no answer, and the door was open. This is a lovely family photo and I couldn’t resist peeking at it, so …’ She gave a quick shrug of the shoulders and lifted her chin slightly. ‘You should be more careful about security.’
‘Really?’ He nodded, his voice calculating and cool enough to add a chill to the air. ‘Thank you so much for the advice, but you aren’t in the city any more. We don’t lock our doors around here. Of course if I’d known I was to have visitors I might have taken additional precautions. Which brings us to my earlier question. Who are you, and why are you here? I’m sure the two charming police officers who take care of this island would be delighted to meet you in a more formal setting. And, as you have probably realised, Gaios is only about three miles from here. And they are the proud owners of both a police car and a motorcycle. So I would suggest that you come up with a very convincing excuse very quickly.’
Police? Was he serious?
She looked warily into those startling blue eyes. Oh, yes, he was serious.
Her chest lifted a good few inches and she stared straight at him in alarm. Then she sucked in a breath and her words came tumbling out faster than she would have thought possible.
‘Okay. Here goes. Sorry, but your peeps have not been keeping you up to date on a few rather crucial matters. Your Mr Brightmore called my talent agency, who called me with instructions to get myself to Paxos because one of their clients has a book to finish and they—’ she gestured towards his chest with her flat hand ‘—are apparently a month past the final deadline for the book, and the publishers are becoming a little desperate. They need this manuscript by the end of August.’
She exhaled dramatically, her shoulders slumped, and she slid the tablet back into her bag with a dramatic flourish before looking up at him, eyebrows high, with a broad grin.
‘Right. Now that’s out of the way I suppose I should introduce myself. Alexis Sloane. Otherwise known as Lexi. Ghost writer extraordinaire. And I’m here to meet a client who needs help with a book. I take it that would be you?’
‘Well, of course I didn’t tell you what the publisher had organised, darling brother, because I knew exactly what your reaction would be.’
Mark Belmont sat down hard on the end of the sun lounger, then immediately stood up again and started pacing up and down the patio, the sun-warmed stone hot under his bare feet. The temperature was a perfect match for his mood: incendiary. His emotions boiled in a turmoil of resistance, resolution and defiance touched with fury. Cassandra Belmont had a lot to answer for.
‘Cassie,’ he hissed, ‘I could strangle you. Seriously. How could you do this to me? You know that this biography is too personal, too close to home, to ask anyone to help. Why do you think I’ve come all the way to Paxos to work on the book on my own? The last thing I need is some random stranger asking questions and digging into places I don’t know I want to go myself. Communication is a wonderful thing, you know. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?’
‘Relax.’
His sister’s voice echoed down the phone, and he imagined her curled up on the sofa in Belmont Manor while her two small sons played havoc around her.
‘Lucas Brightmore recommended the most discreet agency in London. Their staff sign cast-iron confidentiality agreements and would never divulge anything you tell them. I think it could work.’
‘Cassie, you are a menace. I don’t care how discreet this … secretary is. If I wanted a personal assistant I would have brought one. I have excellent staff working for me. Remember? And I would never, ever invite them here to the villa. I need privacy and space to get the work done. You know me.’ His voice slowed and dropped lower in pitch. ‘I have to get my head into the detail on my own before I can go public with anything. And I need peace and quiet to do that.’
‘You’re right. But this is not a business project you are evaluating. This is our mother’s life story. It has to do her justice, and you’re the only person in the family with the faintest bit of creativity. I know I couldn’t do it in a million years. I don’t have nearly enough patience. Especially when it comes to the difficult bits.’
Cassie took a breath and her voice softened.
‘Look, Mark, this is hard for all of us. And it’s incredibly brave of you to take over the project. But that makes it even more important to get the job done as quickly as you can. Then we can all get on with our lives and Dad will be happy.’
‘Happy?’ Mark repeated with a dismissive cough. ‘You mean like he’s happy about my plans to renovate those derelict cottages on the estate into holiday lets? Or the restructuring plans for the business that he’s been blocking since Christmas?’
‘Probably not,’ Cassie answered. ‘But you know as well as I do that it isn’t about you or me. It has a lot more to do with the fact that he’s ill for the first time in his life and he’s just lost his wife in a surgical procedure she never even told him about. He doesn’t know how to deal with that any more than the rest of us.’
Mark ran his tongue over his parched lips. ‘How is he today?’
The delay before Cassie answered said more than the sadness inherent in her reply. ‘About the same. This round of chemotherapy has really knocked him back.’ Then her steely determination kicked back in, tinged with concern. ‘You don’t need to put yourself through this. Hand back the advance from the publisher and let some journo write Mum’s biography. Come home and run your business and get on with your life. The past can take care of itself.’
‘Some journo? No, Cassie. The press destroyed Mum’s last chance of dignity, and I don’t even want to think about what they’d do with a true-life exposé based on lies, innuendo and stupid